Woah! one semi down, one semi and a final to go.

Like everything else in this fine city, there was a lot of confusion as to where and how to get to our seats. No-one at the arena spoke English at the doors and there were no signs pointing to where the Fan Zone was. Eventually through hand signals, I worked out I had to go downstairs. Then they had the doors closed right up until 30 minutes before the show which got people really angry. On the floor, there were no signs as to the seating area so I sat in this great seats that I assumed was mine, only to be told that no, we were at the side of the stage - not the greatest view - blocked by those swinging cameras. Thus, you will not see any of the UK fanclub waving our flags, or me waving my inflatible hand :(

I can understand why we had those seats - you need to seat the fanclubs of the countries actually in that semi final in front of the stage first. We will get our chance on Saturday at the final. I think our seats for the next semi arent bad though. 9th row in the centre.

We didnt have any real car crash entries this year. A few bum notes though. We thought Andorra looked good, and Switzerland and Belarus. We rated them quite highly. But the qualifications to the finals were:
Bosnia
Turkey
Armenia
Iceland
Finland
Malta
Portugal
Sweden
Israel
Romania

Anyway, makes sense. All the Scandis voted for each other and got through. And pretty girls won over rock songs as per usual.

Apparently the UK tv cut to interviews with acts instead of showing the interval act (which was AMAZING!). Travesty.

The afterparty entertainment last night was a Russian drag show. Quite a good one. It opened with a Kylie set and the boys reckoned they put it on just for me :P
I drank about 4 beers in 20 mins leaving me a little tipsy.

I was chatting away to the guys about the semi and noticed the lead singer of Bosnia standing right next to me (Davor from Regina). I leaned over and said 'congratulations' and he hugged me to say thank you and then grabbed my pass around my neck and pointed at it and said "AUSTRALIA! Are you really from Australia?". He seemed really excited.
Davor and I ended up chatting for quite a while about Australia. He has family that live in the Gold Coast. He says he would like to go on holidays around Sydney and Queensland after this to relax. I was giving him some tourist attraction recommendations.
So he's a really excellent guy. I mentioned I was staying around the corner from their hotel and said I was very welcome to join them on the bus home from Euroclub. We left around 4.30am when things were dying down and god I wish I had a camera last night! The Bosnians are so happy (as to be expected) and were all singing on the bus. I'm so very very happy for them. I said I want them to win for me because I have bets on them at very good odds.

So... I've had about 3 hours sleep, feeling seedy, but I have a semi 2 rehearsal to attend in a couple of hours. Gotta be there to see Norway and the Ukraine perform! Then home to sleep and off to the Russian party tonight. Should be a big one.