Speaking of Armenia, I woke up this morning and had the Armenian song stuck in my head. I went to classes and always had a voice singing "Qele Qele" inside my head!

I agree that there was a lot of bizarre stuff in the first semi-final. The second one was much more "normal" - by Eurovision standards. But hey, Europe still has humor! The pirates made it to the final! I actually didn't expect it, but by now I really shouldn't be surprised anymore, even if I think in advance that there are actually a lot of songs that could make it, and still others are the lucky ones. Didn't expect Georgia, either, but was only slightly surprised that Iceland and Albania reached the final. The other songs were pretty much all on my list.

In this second semi-final, Portugal made the strongest impression on me. Turkey was another favorite, and I also liked Denmark, although none of these really blew me away. I still have high expectations concerning the Serbian entry - ever since I've heard that Željko Joksimović composed the song. After all he has already won the ESC composers' award twice, and those two songs are among my very favorite Eurovision songs ever. And the short clip that was shown in the semi-finals looked promising. That'll be quite a day for him - hosting the show AND having his own song performed in the contest! Go Serbia!

Now I've talked so much and haven't even written down all the countries yet ... So ...
The last 10 countries that qualified for the final on Saturday are:
Iceland, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, Albania, Latvia, Croatia, Denmark, Georgia, Portugal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCCs8xRenJU (this one is without the BBC commentary)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gjqc5iMCZE

I just realized something. Isn't it interesting that the countries were arranged in the semi-finals like this in order to prevent that neighboring countries only vote for each other? OK, only one of the Baltic states qualified, not so many countries from Eastern Europe qualified as would have been possible, same goes for the Balkan countries. What's really surprising is that Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and also Finland all qualified! So much for that. Under the old system there has hardly ever been a case when all these countries took part in the final. Well, for the final it's probably even a disadvantage. Russia and Ukraine should be happy about that. We'll see.

Edited to add recap video (sorry about the commentary, but that's the only one I could find up to now).

Janina.

Last Edited By: NorthernSnail May 24 08 10:45 AM. Edited 3 times.