Who would have thought that semi-final 2, or at least the first half, turns out to be a gift for the die-hard Eurovision fan? We get window mannequins, robots, a volcano, and what looks like a 2018 version of Can, Reyhan & İzel. Or İzel, Reyhan & Can. Or Can, İzel & Reyhan. All versions exist. I don’t know which is the correct one, but I love them forever, no matter what.

One flag, three colours. Just like in 1991. (Moldova; photo: Thomas Hanses, eurovisiont.tv)

Anyway! Erm… back to 2018. Norway: Uh. But it will do very well. Also doing well: Denmark (disclaimer: I have nothing against this one) and Moldova (can’t wait to see it in full). Unfortunately, Russia will do well too, even though my instant thought was “Oh Gott, nicht Dein Ernst, oder?” (which is German for “you can’t be serious”). Everything else from today’s rehearsals might struggle. Especially the Netherlands, which is hard to find any nice words for, because that’s just not possible. And Australia… I hope this kind of bad is calculated.

San Marino though… <3 <3 <3 …. you know, it takes a lot to entertain me, to make me smile. And this country does, every, fucking, year. And to think I forgot to buy a San Marino flag… now that’s one of my top priority tasks for Lisbon!

We are who we are… epic: San Marino. (Photo: Thomas Hanses, eurovision.tv)

Speaking of which… Tomorrow it’s my time to come aboard! My plane leaves Berlin at 11:30 CET and lands in the host city at 14:15 Lisbon time. I’ll rush to the hotel then, do what needs to be done, and try to get to the press centre and get started with my Lisbon blogging as fast as humanly possible. Then it’ll finally be time for us, escgo.com, to be covering the event live from the host city again. It’s been way too long since we left Vienna. Good to be back!

Make sure to follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook so that you don’t miss any of our coverage – Eurovision from a more personal, more distinct, and more independent perspective – as this is what escgo! stands for!

See you from Lisbon! 🙂

Featured image photo: Thomas Hanses, eurovision.tv