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How to be a Eurovision fan

Posted by Living Vicariously on May 15, 2013
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Attending Eurovision as an Australian requires a certain degree of vigilance and perseverance. First of all, you have to find out when tickets will be on sale, then you have to work out how you can buy them.

But there is much more to Eurovision than tickets! There are the fan clubs. All of the official Eurovision fan clubs are part of the OGAE Network. We first heard of this by accident, when a contact on social media suggested we join.

If you live in Europe, this is a simple matter of joining your national club. However, if you are an Australian, you come under the category of ‘Rest of the World’ – fortunately, there is an OGAE with that name, so you don’t miss out!

Joining OGAE Rest of the World is a simple matter of e-mailing the club president in South Africa, who then forwards your details to the club secretary in Azerbaijan for the cards to be produced in Finland. Then you go to the Eurovision Fan Cafe in Malmö to pick up your card from an unmarked desk in the foyer where you pay cash for the final result. Yes, our cards were actually there to be collected. However, our photos and names had been swapped, which is a little disconcerting as we are of differing gender.

After sending our details to OGAE, we then received an email about submitting our information to apply for yet another limited edition fan pass with benefits including access to exclusive clubs and free public transport around Skåne County in Sweden. These would certainly be worthwhile, so while the email didn’t look particularly official, it also didn’t ask for credit card or bank details, first born children or the like, so we figured that we would give it a go. Days before we left, we received an email confirming that we had passes and giving the details on how to collect them. These had to be collected once we had our OGAE passes, from the accreditation centre at the arena. So off we headed to collect our passes. These are formal accreditation cards like those worn by the press, staff etc, but with a designation for fans, so you feel really special wearing one. (Although the OGAE had again swapped our photos, so we had new pictures taken for the accreditation.)Yes, it’s official, I’m an accredited Eurovision fan!

Thinking we had the fan thing all sorted, we ran into an Australian at the Semi Final who then told us about a Facebook page for Australians at Eurovision that organised events, but which we hadn’t managed to hear about from any of our other contacts. Just when we thought we had all bases covered! The Eurovision fan world is bigger and far more complicated than you may expect!

Eurovision here I am!!!

Posted by Living Vicariously on May 14, 2013
Posted in: eurovision, travel. Tagged: , , , . 2 comments

So here I am in Malmö where the Eurovision dream begins! The whole town is getting in the mood for this event. There are disco balls and speakers blaring music from previous Eurovision finals outside the Central Station. Eurovision Village has taken over Gustav Adolf’s Torg with a ‘Super Hangout’ for fans and a stage featuring various performances throughout the day (today seemed to be school choirs with varying levels of skill and enthusiasm). Folkets Park is home to the Eurovision Fan Cafe. Statues have been decorated with butterflies – the logo for this year – and everywhere there are Eurovision banners and butterfly signposts to help fans find their way around.

Thanks to the wonders of social media, we poor Cinderellas were indeed able to go to the Eurovision ball. The first semi-final is on tonight!

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The Road to Eurovision Begins

Posted by Living Vicariously on May 11, 2013
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Our road to Eurovision has not been an easy one. Obtaining tickets was, of course, pivotal. While we had discussed going to soak up the party vibe regardless, deep down, we both knew that it just wouldn’t be the same travelling all that way if we weren’t going to the actual event.

Firstly, we had to work out how to buy tickets. Travel agencies in Australia had advertised Eurovision themed tours, however, a reading of the fine print revealed that these did not include the actual tickets. We would have to go it alone. To make sure we would find out when tickets for 2013 were on sale, we joined every online Eurovision themed newsletter or update we could find. Eventually the date was announced, and the time difference from Sweden meant that tickets would be on sale from the very reasonable hour of 8pm Australian time. To get in the Euro mood, we went for dinner at Una’s then returned to fire up the laptops. However, as we tried to buy tickets, we soon realised something was wrong. After entering the validation code, our payment was not accepted. Another check of the fine print revealed that non-European credit cards were only accepted via the telephone, not the website. Social media was in a frenzy with Australian and other non-European potential Eurovision audience members claiming discrimination. We tried calling, but with no luck. Australians had posted online that they had eventually got through, only to be told there was a 30 minute wait, which is prohibitive on a call from Australia to Sweden. We joined in the commiserations, posting our disappointment online.

We felt stunned. After all the initial excitement, the waiting and the preparation, it seemed our Eurovision dreams were dashed.

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Things to know about Norway

Posted by Living Vicariously on May 11, 2013
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The streets are not full of hunks who look like members of ’80’s pop group, a-ha.

In winter time, people walk into you all the time on the street. I have two theories for this: 1) hooded jackets impact on peripheral vision or 2) your presence is causing a ‘butterfly effect’ – as a tourist you are taking up space on the street that has been empty every other day so your presence is unexpected and people just walk into you.

Vehicles drive down pedestrian malls at any time of the day, not only before/after store closing times.

In the first half of May, students graduate from high school and wander around the streets wearing red pants. This otherwise has little impact on you as a tourist unless they choose to hold a graduation party in the nightclub behind your hotel.

Check opening and closing times and dates for attractions carefully, particularly in Bergen. Many don’t open until 15 May, just in time to close again for the public holiday on 17 May. This makes some sense for outdoor attractions like gardens and hiking trails, but is perplexing for things like museums which are not dependent on weather, and are actually good places to visit on cold and rainy days.

Otherwise, I have found May is a fantastic time to visit Norway. The weather has been mostly good – we have had days in their 20’s down to about 5 degrees Celsius. Some sunny days among the rainy (museum and shopping) days. The summer crowds have not yet descended so it is easy to move around on the streets and attractions are not crowded (also many of the staff have just started for the season and still have their training wheels on, but at least they’re still friendly).

But the best part is that the snow is just melting. Streams are part frozen, part gushing along so strongly that waves fall back upstream. Some of the waterfalls are still frozen in their upper reaches, but everywhere you look there are waterfalls cascading right from the top of a mountain / cliff to the bottom, winding their way along the rocks, and roaring with full strength at the bottom. The rivers and waterfalls are certainly at their most impressive.

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Bergen

Posted by Living Vicariously on May 11, 2013
Posted in: eurovision, music, travel. Tagged: , , . 1 comment

We have been in Bergen for several days now and are used to the sight and smell of dried cod.

It’s a quaint place, dominated by the rust red and ochre painted wooden buildings of the old town, the facade to a small historical precinct of narrow lanes, historical and reconstructed buildings and a large wooden sculpture of, yes, a cod! It has some apparently interesting museums, some of which may be open for four hours a day if they can be bothered to open at all. (Note for those travelling from heathen nations like Australia, Ascension Day is a public holiday in Europe. Given that it falls 40 days after Easter, the unwary traveller is likely to spend half the day wandering around and wondering why all the shops are closed on a random Thursday.) This section of the town is clearly geared up to be a ‘tourist trap” for those on the cruise liners which visit the town on around 2 of every 3 days of the year. It is designed to meet all their needs and keep them within their designated area, just as it served to self-sufficiently segregate the Hanseatic merchants from the Norwegian locals 300 years ago.

One area where locals and tourists meet, however, is the funicular, which travels to the top of Mt Floyen. On a clear day, which we were fortunate to experience given that it also apparently rains here 2 out of 3 days of the year, the views back over the town are impressive. It looks like a toy town, set around arms of a fjord, with Lego boats moored at the docks. In mid-May, the tallest of the granite mountains overlooking the town is still flecked with snow. It has the obligatory restaurant, kiosk and store selling all things moose and fair isle design. Yet, wander just a few hundred metres away along the forest paths and you feel far from civilisation, in the midst of a Norwegian wood (sorry, couldn’t help myself). We wandered the short distance to a small lake, which still had some ice cover, and found some frogs beginning to emerge from their winter hibernation.

From here, we walked back into town, at first through the pine and birch forest, then the path wound through the outskirts of the town, with white wooden houses set along narrow, cobbled lanes. We set off exploring through the lanes, houses with fairly bare yards, given that winter is just ending, but with pot plants of spring flowers, particularly jonquils, hanging by or sitting near front entrances. We enjoyed coffee and apple cake with cream at Det Lille Kaffekompaniet, one of the best cafes in Bergen, tucked away in a quiet back street.

Bergen is a great town for those who like to wander. On the opposite side of the Harbour to the touristy Bryggen, cobbled streets set out in mediaeval times yield treasures like arty shops, cafes, the theatre and lots of interesting buildings for those who like to take the time to explore a town.

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On our way!

Posted by Living Vicariously on May 10, 2013
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The Eurovision retro vibe started early on our journey, with a laminated card at the check-in desk at Sydney airport announcing that there would be no in-flight entertainment on the first leg of our trip. Fortunately, I had purchased an i-pad mini for my holiday, so it was technology to the rescue.

We started with a side trip to Norway, beginning in Oslo. Taking advantage of the unexpected warm and sunny weather, we strolled around the harbour from Akershus Fortress to the Aker Brygge shopping centre, and along Karl Johan’s Gate from the Royal Palace to the yellow bricked Parliament building and beyond. Then we went to explore our favourite stores, the unfortunately named Heimen, which stocks a great range of Scandinavian produced products and the funky clothing label Moods of Norway, which beats purchasing a tacky Norwegian flag t-shirt any day. After raiding a local supermarket for Freia chocolate, we found a nice coffee shop back by the harbour with blankets placed thoughtfully on the outside chairs. Ah, the pleasantries of al-fresco dining in Norway in the springtime!

We had dinner at Kafe Celsius, which serves more modern interpretations of traditional Nordic cuisine. I had the salmon with sour cream topping and my companion had the cod with prawns. Both dishes were amazing. The sour cream topping, flavoured with basil and sun-dried tomatoes, complemented the salmon beautifully, enhancing but not overwhelming its subtle flavour. We headed on to dessert, I had the chocolate mousse with raspberry sorbet and my friend had the apple cake. The only minor issue was that they had run out of vanilla ice cream, so the apple cake also came with raspberry sorbet. In our limited experience, this place remains as our favourite restaurant in Oslo.

After our night in Oslo, we headed back to Central Station to catch the train to Bergen. We were met by a steady stream of teenage girls, some with chaperones, most wearing One Direction t-shirts heading from the station into Oslo, fortunately in the opposite direction to us. All the clothing stores we passed were playing One Direction songs. We celebrated our good fortune to be leaving town the day of the One Direction concert. I figured that as we watched the arrivals for One Direction, so people would look at us on our eventual arrival in Malmö and think “there’s another two for Eurovision”!