Yep, it’s day 4 so I’m a bit late – but I’m finally in Lisbon!

“Equinox” was the first Eurovision-related thing I experienced on my trip. Not a common framework, but written on the tyres of a bicycle on my train to Berlin-Schönefeld AIrport.

Irrelevant, you say? Then you don’t know anything about Eurovision! Eurovision is everywhere. You just have to know to look for it.

My plane took off towards the land of “Baunilha e chocolate” around 11:30 CET, as I was listening to “Mensageira” (from this year’s FdC) – and at that moment I couldn’t stop laughing. I laughed so deeply, the couple next to me must have thought something was wrong with me. Why? Because I was flying to Eurovision. To Lisbon. To Portugal. Because THIS COUNTRY WON THE CONTEST. Realisation, part #458.

So, after a few hours of flight and a quite chaotic trip on the airport bus, I arrived at my hotel in the late afternoon, where I had a few minutes to relax (I had a rather sleepless night back in my Berlin bed). Then I took a quick trip to the press centre, or the fan centre, because I’m an “F” this year and things aren’t as convenient as usual. This means we can’t provide the content that we could if we had 1. a table, and 2. electricity (both tend to be quite useful), but that’s not available to us this year. Still, we will adapt to the situation and make the best out of it! Whether I will manage, time will tell. However, the view from the press/fans area is quite spectacular:

Now I will check out today’s rehearsal videos, because I missed everything today (except the end of Montenegro’s and the start of Slovenia’s press conference), and I’ll have an early night because the last days were intense and sleepless with preparations, and in my inner CET-clock it’s already past midnight too.

My 7th Eurovision adventure has officially begun, and I hope to be able to blog the rehearsals from the arena tomorrow. And if that’s technically not possible, I’ll find something else to do and to share both here and across our social channels on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – we’ll keep you updated!

For now:

Gute Nacht, boa noite, good night from Lisbon!