Uff, hello from Lisbon! A few things went wrong here and there in the past two days, so I’m very sorry that there’ve been no new updates for quite a while. Being alone here with an F accreditation is already quite restricting, and I’ve also felt really unwell since yesterday morning (exhaustion basically) so decided to reduce my activities to a minimum, i.e. attending the Blue Carpet event, which is always a favourite – but I’ll write more about later!

Now, where were we?

On Saturday, I was walking around beautiful Alfama, a part of Lisbon in which medieval buildings survived the earthquake of 1755, which destroyed most parts of the city. Eurovision isn’t just about Eurovision when it’s hosted in a beautiful city like Lisbon.

Alfama

Later on the same day, I was attending the Israeli party, which had a massive queue in front of the location where we kept standing and queueing for nearly an hour. At least I got a free hug. We heard rumours that we might have trouble to get in with our OGAE cards, but in the end it all worked out fine and we had a really good time there. We saw the acts from Iceland, Finland, Ireland, San Marino, Denmark, Georgia and Poland perform (I’m sure I forgot some), and of course Israel’s Netta.

San Marino performing at the Israeli Party

Denmark’s Rasmussen was being original by not performing on stage, but Viking-style unplugged in the middle of the crowd on the floor, surrounded by smartphones pointing at him. I was a bit too far a way to join these, but it was very effective and stood out from all the other acts. Still, he can’t do that in the actual shows.

My Sunday turned out slightly different to what I planned. Originally, I wanted to see the rehearsals of the finalists, then go to the Blue Carpet, then to Euroclub. But already on Saturday I felt like I needed to slow down (brother), so I stayed at home, and it was good that I did exactly that, as I was starting to feel really unwell around lunchtime yesterday. I wasn’t sure whether I would be able to do the Blue Carpet, especially considering that it’s very hot and sunny (which is a good thing generally, don’t get me wrong!), but thanks to the Eurovision gods, the fan area was under the roof of MAAT (Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology), so I could take it easy in the chilly shade and follow the delegations as they were making their way along the Blue Carpet.

It all was staged in the most spectacular scenery that I can remember for any other Blue, Red or Pink Carpet, with a stunning view of Ponte 25 de Abril. I managed to get photos of all the artists (bar Russia and the Netherlands – unintentionally, honest!) and will post them later today (those of semi-final 1), on Wednesday (semi-final 2) and on Friday (the six finalists), but for now here are some general impressions from the event:

As I’m still not feeling great, I will take things step by step for now, but I’ll try to be at the jury final tonight and live-tweet about crowd reactions and vocal performances from the Altice Arena as half of the votes for tomorrow’s second semi-final are already cast today. Stay tuned!