The Eurovision Final is set

It was a heck of a show. Mans and Petra are great hosts. The only snag was that none of the other Nordic countries made it through. This will impact Sweden's votes, I think. Will Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland give all their votes to Sweden? Or, freed from the obligation of reciprocal  voting, will they vote their hearts for a change?

I'm getting excited for the trip, to say the least!

Other favourites

Ukraine is also proving a popular pick this year. If she can get by the semi-finals on Tuesday, Jamala may do well with her song "1944", which refers to the Russian annexation of Crimea in that year (as opposed to its re-annexation this year):

The Eurovision rules preclude songs that are political in nature, but Jamala's song was approved despite Russian complaints. Voting will be interesting!

Another song with a bit of subtext is France's Amir, with "J'ai cherché". It can't be an accident that the French broadcasters chose a multi-cultural singer this year. Here's his winning performance:

The first semi-final is tonight, and I'll report on the big winners and losers tomorrow!

The bookie's favorite: Russia

Below is the official video from Sergey Lazarev, Russia's entry this year. Oddly, given the geopolitical climate in Europe, the bookies have Sergey as the top pick for this year's contest:

Here's a snippet of his rehearsal yesterday, which gives a good idea of how his performance will be staged. There are lots of Måns-esque interactive lighting effects. One thing that Eurovision can be counted on is to repeat what won last year!

Precisely one week from now

... I will be in my seat at the Globe arena, watching the grand final of the 2016 contest in person. It is safe to say that I am tremendously excited at the prospect!!!!!!!

Each day this week, I'll share the videos of the top contenders, along with info from the semi-finals.

For now, here's a recap of all of the competitors. It's seventeen minutes well spent, if you're into this sort of thing:

   

The hus is getting older

We were talking with Marcia and Rutger about how long it has been since we built our house. We were all a bit surprised to realise this summer would be eight years since the house went up. It is amazing how quickly time flies. In many ways, it seems like yesterday. But then, I look at old pictures and we can see how much has changed.

I bring this up because this realisation has changed our thinking a bit. We took a lot of stuff out to the house in the first couple of years that we haven’t used. I’ve not wanted to throw anything away because of the effort of carrying anything out to the house.

This spring, though, both Sooz and I had a bit of a clean-up and earmarked a lot of stuff to get rid of. If I haven’t used it in a few years, I don’t need it! We’re a lot more organised and knowledgeable these days so we don’t need to hang onto stuff “just in case”. I don't want our little summer house to start filling up with junk like my regular house!

The other thing about the passing years is that we’re starting to see a need for maintenance and upgrades. Weatherstripping is becoming brittle, our door and window trim needs a new coat, our TV set is looking very dated. Up until now, we’ve been building and adding to the house. 

I expect we will be moving from constructing our house to maintaining it over the next few years. It may not be as much fun, but it’ll keep me busy, which is the important thing...

Trevlig Valborg!

Tonight is Valborg, the night before May 1st, and the traditional start of Spring in Sweden. Tonight is celebrated by a big bonfire, and tomorrow is time for speeches by the "politically active", as the official Sweden website puts it in describing the day.

I wrote about my first Valborg on the blog six years ago for those readers interested in mining the archive.

Cinderella maintenance

We were able to open up the house surprisingly easily after its winter break; everything was in fine shape. There was one little issue, however. The first day we used the Cinderella, it was unusually smelly.

A bit of investigating found that the toilet had moved away from its chimney just the smallest amount, allowing some of the exhaust to blow back into the room.

I was able to re-seat it easily, and that fixed the issue. But we found that it had not burned its waste as completely as it usually does. Since the Cinderella was entering its seventh year of service, I thought it might need some sort of overhaul. 

I called Johan, our trusty Cinderella vendor, and he emailed me a maintenance document. Sooz and I cleaned out the exhaust pipes per the instructions. It wasn’t that bad, which we were happy to see. We also steamed it out with a litre of boiling water, and everything was back to normal. 

We will take good care of our Cinderella. It’s very important to us!

The Swedish Number

Incidentally, this happened while we were in Sweden recently. The Swedish tourist board has set up a "national phone number". 

Dial +46 771 793 336 and you'll be connected to a Swedish person to talk about anything at all. Since the program started, 17,000 Swedes have signed up to have calls sent to them. People from all over the world are calling in to talk to a random Swede, even the Prime Minister:

Naturally, this experiment in openness and tourism has gained a great deal of attention. The Atlantic, Guardian, and New York Times have all written about the experience. Here's a tip, though: don't ask about ABBA, Ikea, or the Swedish Chef!

New money

I saw a few stickers on cash registers last week with pictures of Swedish notes crossed out and a date of June 30th.

A closer look showed the 20, 50, and 1000 kronor notes are being taken out of circulation in the next couple of months, replaced by newer, more secure versions. I'll admit I had completely missed this news.

Next year, the 100 and 500 kronor notes will be withdrawn, along with the coins.

I looked at my cash (as I said recently, Sweden is pretty cashless already) and found some old bills. I'll be spending them them in advance of the changeover!

A quick update

The week has unexpectedly flown by, despite it being mostly drizzly, and me unusually with no major projects. We spent the day at Gustavsberg shopping for various supplies, Janne visited us Thursday, we had dinner with Peter and Jeanette Friday, and Marcia and Rutger are arriving today for their birthday sleepover.

Oh- I almost forgot- I managed to score a ticket for the Eurovision final on May 14th! I'll be back to Sweden for that.

I have been updating the photo page, and there are lots of blog posts coming over the next few weeks.

UPDATE: I took this panorama last night, and I think it turned out very well. I'll tweak it a bit in Photoshop later, but it's good enough to share right away.

We're here

...and all is well. We arrived to the hospitality of Rutger and Marcia's house Friday night, and left at midday Saturday to shop and take the 16:10 boat from Stavsnäs. Thankfully, Annika and Olle met us, because we (as usual) bought way too much stuff to carry!

Sooz got to try out her new shopping trolley. We've seen many islanders with a certain brand so, after much debate over the array of choices available, Sooz chose a lovely turquoise model with big wheels and a freezer compartment. It swallowed up a whole load of groceries and bumped along the path like a champ.

The funniest thing is that our boat from Stavsnäs had maybe 6 people on it, and one of those passengers had the exact same trolley as ours. It's a small world!

Annika and Olle joined us for Sooz's fish tacos last night and we had a wonderful time as usual. The house is in great shape and we got everything up and running in an hour.

I've started a new photo album for this visit. More later in the week.

T-Minus one week!

Seven days from now, we'll be in the air on our way to Stockholm. Sooz is taking Ollie to his old dog sitter in Ascot, and I'm meeting up with her to take Norwegian Airways after work.

We will take the late afternoon boat to Aspö on Saturday, so we will have time to shop on our way to Stavsnäs. We'll be having dinner with Annika and Olle that night. We can't wait.

PS. Happy Birthday to Grant!

Cost of Living Index

I found a fascinating interactive chart at the Economist website.

It shows the current cost of living in a number of world cities, using New York as the baseline.

Singapore retains its #1 spot as most expensive. London is 6th, just ahead of New York at 7th.

Copenhagen is 8th, but I was surprised to see that Stockholm has fallen all the way to 42nd! Much of this is the strength of the dollar. Looking at the chart for five or ten years ago gives a different story.

I had quite a lot of entertainment looking at this chart, and I hope my dear readers will enjoy it as well.

A small house in New York

I saw this New York apartment on Dwell recently.

Two things caught my eye, first that the house was about 600 square feet, the same size of our own stuga.

Second was the quote: “seldom-needed stuff (luggage, winter clothes) is stashed in the higher cabinets. ‛Believe it or not, we have empty cabinets,’ says the owner. ‛There’s space for everything.’”


Our own house is exactly the same way. A combination of lots of IKEA cabinets, and not owning too much to begin with, leave lots of free space!

Frans is the winner!

It was another fantastic Melodifestival finale last night from the Friends Arena in Stockholm.

The hot favourite, Frans, won with his "If I Were Sorry," which is posted in last week's entry. It was different from most of the other entries— no fancy staging, no backup singers or dancers, no pyrotechnics or light shows. We'll have to see how he does in the big show with such a simple song.

There were plenty of other highlights from the show. First off, we got to watch it from a local pub with Marcia and Rutger and a packed crowd. That made it a lot more fun!

There were plenty of other highlights too. Måns performed "Heroes" in an acoustic version, and with a replacement for his laser-generated children:

My other favorite bit was the return of "Linda Woodruff" of the European Broadcasting Union (who's really Sweden's own Sarah Dawn Finer):

I have to say that SVT does a fantastic job of putting on a live show. Not just last night's finale, but to hold six live semi-finals all over the country every Saturday is quite the feat. I'm sure they will pull out all the stops for the Eurovision finale in May!

Melodifestival: Halmstad

Last night was the 'second chance' show, this time from Halmstad. (I had to look it up; it's on the western coast, between Gothenburg and Malmö.)

The format was new. Each of the eight acts were pitted one-on-one against each other. Four duels, four winners through to the final.

Much to Sooz's pleasure, Samir and Viktor made it through to the final show. It is a catchy tune, but watch the video all the way through to understand just why she likes this duo:

The bookies have put Frans as an early favourite. I thought this song was a bit droopy at first, but it is growing on me:

Next Saturday is the big final and we'll be watching live at a local pub. The best news is that Marcia and Rutger will be visiting London this weekend, and they'll be joining us for the show! I feel a little bad that my Swedish friends come to England and I make them watch the Melodifestival, but they're good sports and I'm sure it will be a fun time.

Making plans for Ollie

I had written that, during our April visit,  Ollie is going to be with his old dog-sitter, Ethie, in our previous neighbourhood of Ascot. 

It turns out that we may not be able to do the same this summer, as Ethie is pretty booked up around the summer dates I'm able to be off work. 

I looked into the possibility of taking Ollie with us to Sweden. It turns out to be surprisingly inexpensive for him to join us on our Norwegian Air flight. The import rules for his moving between the UK and Sweden are also straightforward. We'd love for Ollie to be with us all summer, and we know he was happy out there last time. 

But things are a lot different now. Ollie will be 13 by then and he can't get around as well as he used to. There are a lot of steps and uneven ground around our little stuga, neither of which Ollie likes much any more. He also doesn't have much stamina, so he couldn't, for example, walk all the way to the Waxholms dock. We worry it may be too stressful for both him and us to have a good summer in Sweden.

The other option is a new dog sitter. We've had a trial run with a young lady whom Ollie seems to love. She may be able to stay in our flat while we're away. That makes things easier and simpler for Ollie, and so less a concern for both of us.

I haven't totally given up on the thought of our furry boy being with us, though! I'll share our thinking on this as we make our summer plans.

Melodifestival- Gävle

Not a bad show last night in Gävle, no real stinkers, but I don't see a winner from here, either. Joining Gina Dirawi as co-host was old favourite Sara Dawn Finer. I'm really starting to like Gina, she's multi-talented!

Going through to the final was the single-named Frans and another old hand, Molly Sandén. Molly's staging was interesting, but her outfit was bizarre. Her skirt looked like to was going to be pulled off and turned into a stage prop at any moment, but it never did.

In other news, we watched the UK selection show on Friday night. It was, frankly, embarrassing. For a start, the show was on BBC4, with a C-list host. Måns performed "Heroes" at the opening, but he didn't participate at all elsewhere in the show. The production values were far worse than a Melodifestival semi-final in Gävle. And this from a country that was one of the world's first broadcasters, not to mention bringing us the Beatles and the Clash! Like I say, embarrassing.

At least the public picked the best of the acts performing that night. So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the entry of the United Kingdom, Joe and Jake:

Expat.com

I registered my blog a long time ago with expat-blogs.com. Over the years, I'm sure many people have found this site through their referral. I've probably disappointed many folks looking for information on work or life in Stockholm, though!

The website has changed recently to expat.com, and it is a much broader and sharper-looking site these days. It's easy to find information on most any city in the world now.

It is certainly worth a look if you're thinking (or just dreaming) of living elsewhere.

Melodifestival- Norrköping

Things were pretty "meh" last night in Norrköping. The highlight for me was the opening performance of "Under Pressure" by co-hosts Henrik Schyffert and Gina Dirawi:

As for the acts themselves, let's just say there won't be anybody playing in the Eurovision final coming from this heat!

Although, Lisa Ajax's "My Heart Wants Me Dead" must be in contention for the best/worst song title ever...

Back to Aspö

We've set the date of the first trip back to Sweden from our new London home.

We'll be there the beginning of April, just after Easter. Ollie will spend the time back in Ascot with Ethie, his dog-sitter from our previous time in the UK. Everyone is happy about that!

To maximise our time, we will take Norwegian Air Friday night and then back early Monday morning the following week. That will give us two full weekends with no jetlag. Perfect.

Melodifestival- Malmö

The second semi-final was last night in Malmö, with guest host (and previous Eurovision winner) Charlotte Perrelli.

There were a number of repeat acts again this show, David Lindgren and Isa (whom you'll remember from last year's blog) primary among them. In fact, David and Wiktoria went straight through to the final. Isa (with a new brunette hairstyle and a less poppy sound) made it to the second chance show.

Wiktoria's staging was very different. She wore a body stocking for her performance, which was a platform for an array of digital effects; it was an spectacular look.
 
Sooz had a great observation that many of the acts had unusual lighting schemes. Given that Måns won last year with his interactive laser show, it's no surprise that many artists are doing something similar. It's quite common for entrants to copy last year's successful entries!

The ABBA Museum

The recent edition of Intelligent Life magazine has a wonderful article about the ABBA museum. It really makes me want to go next time I'm in Stockholm!

The article covers much more than the museum, though. ABBA's place within mid-70's Swedish culture is discussed, and it is a fascinating read.

There's a podcast version, too, if you're into that.

The Melodifestival is back

Just a quick update today from the first semi-final in Göteborg. All of the acts were Euro-ready for sure. A bit disappointing that all of them were so professional!

Ace Wilder returned with a much more grown-up look and song, and went straight to the final with "Don't Worry." She is one to watch.

Sooz rather liked the second-chance duo, Samir and Viktor, with "Bada Nakna", or 'Swim Naked." Quite a bit of beefcake on stage.

We've also booked our place at a local pub to watch the final on March 12th live. That should be amusing. Next week, Malmö!

"A very nice hand for these Texan gentlemen"

December 1, 1957. Still sounds great today, over fifty-eight years later.

RIP Buddy Holly.