EUROVISION

So those of you not familiar with prime time television in Europe will probably not be familiar with the long-running musical contest called "Eurovision." I surely was not familiar until my compatriots who had lived in Iceland in previous years clued me in. Eurovision is a song contest similar to American Idol, but where each country competing has only one song and musical group to perform it. There are two rounds, the semi-finals and the finals. Winners are determined by phone in votes from each participating country. Tuesday we watched the first semi-final. It was quite the experience. We heard songs from the likes of Russia, Moldova, Serbia, Poland and Iceland (in addition to 12 others) We quickly picked our favorites: Iceland, because well... we're in Iceland; Serbia... cause their song was pretty cool, although kind of a bit weird [seriously he reminds me of a girl I know]; Greece, because their lead singer just didn't care... really I'm not sure he wanted to be there, but their song was still great)



We went 7 for 10 predicting who would make it to the final round. Not bad. There were some dogs who made it though... mostly Russia, which was terrible...

Anyway all our talk of Eurovision around the field station got us an invite to our friends Yann and Erica's house in Husavik for a Eurovision party. Our many of our friends from around the field station and some others we had not met before were there to watch the festivities.
During the contest we came up with some critera that make for a "good" Eurovision song: (This list is not necessarily complete)

1. Wind
2. Pyrotechnics
3. Following a panning camera while singing
4. Ballerina dancers
5. Key change
6. Facial gesture to the camera
7. Costume change
8. Novel "ethnic" instrument (mostly fiddles)

A surprising number of acts incorporate high number of these criteria. Just look at any of the youtube videos of the live performance.... Much to the surprise of all the German nationals in attendance at our party, Germany actually won! After the show, the viewing devolved into a full-fledged kitchen party. I sampled the local drink... Icelandic Schnapps called Brennivín... It tastes like spicy black licorice. Also involved was some lab ethanol... nearly 100% pure... talk about spicy...

The coolest part of the evening though was when Yann (purportedly well known as the best birder in Iceland) brandished some eggs from a local sea-bird called a Guillemont
and put them in a pot to soft boil. These eggs are rare (these birds nest on sea cliffs) and highly sought after by Icelanders. They were delicious, so different from normal chicken eggs.


I feel so lucky to be experiencing stuff like this and to be with such a great group of people here.