Yesterday marked the final round in the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest. For those of you who aren't familiar with Eurovision, it's a contest that was originally started in the 1950s by a handful of western European countries, and has gradually expanded so that now basically every European country (and even some non-European countries, like Armenia, Israel, and Georgia) take part. Each country enters a song/singer and then the countries vote (you can even vote by text message--just like American Idol!). And the country with the most votes wins. Voting often goes along geopolitical boundaries (i.e. people often vote for the countries they like, not the songs or singers they like), and some countries have used the song contest for political purposes. For example, Ukraine's entry for Eurovision 2007 supposedly sang "Russia, goodbye" (The song was called "Dancing Lasha Tumbai"--apparently the Russians think "lasha tumbai" sounds like "Russia goodbye"...I still think it's nonsense. =P ) and Georgia's entry for 2009 sang "We don't wanna put in" ("We don't want a Putin"--get it?).
Well, this year, the voters decided they liked Germany the most (Tell you what, Germany: we vote you in number one in Eurovision, and you bail out the EU. Deal?), and voted Lena (not to be confused with Nena) and her song "Satellite" (we've moved passed the 99 red balloons; now we have actual satellites) to the top.
In case you wanted to see this award-winning performance, but missed the competitions, Eurovision posts videos to YouTube.
Here's Germany's song (Don't worry; it's not in German. It was actually written by Americans, and it's in English...which probably also explains both the annoying intonation of this girl when she sings and why she won. What can we say? Americans are just awesome when it comes to writing music):
And here's Lena's reaction after the competition (also in English, but at least her voice isn't quite as nasally here):
So congratulations to Germany on their win!
As to my own personal experiences during Eurovision, I totally forgot it was on...and even had I known it was going on, it's not like I could really watch it anyway, since I don't have a TV here. I would have had to go to a friend's or something. But either way, no one here in Giessen seemed too terribly excited about Germany's win. Sure, I saw a few more German flags than normal when walking to the Mensa today, but those flags have been out for a while now, and I figured they probably have more to do with soccer than with Eurovision. But I didn't see or hear any big celebrations yesterday or today--no cars honking, no drunk people singing the national anthem or anything like that. Maybe someone will mention something at the Landeskunde Aktuell class tomorrow. But other than that, it's just business as usual here in Giessen.
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official Eurovision website: http://www.eurovision.tv
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