Hello from Bakooo! We didn’t manage to blog yesterday about Wednesday as we had a bit of a lie in on Thursday.

Wednesday was spent in the Press Centre watching the first dress rehearsal of the second semi-final, which you can read again here. We then went to EuroClub where Dima Bilan was performing a concert with Nikki Jamal. We got there halfway through the concert which wasn’t really that busy apart from 100 or so people down the front. It seemed like they were letting non accredited people in as there were loads of kids running around and teenage girls. Thankfully, most of them left after Dima finished but they didn’t really play much Eurovision music at all. That’s been such a disappointment this year, while the venue is large, their strange music policy is not so good, and we’ve heard that they cancelled most of the foreign DJs they had lined up to play.

On Thursday, we had a bit of a lie-in then we had a nice relaxing afternoon walking around the old town with the ESC Nation crew and going for lunch to this random little tea place called Kishmish, which was so dark inside it took ages for our eyes to adjust! The old man who ran it was very friendly though!

The centre of Baku is really lovely, with the impressive Fountain Square area with pedestrianised streets and nice cafes and designer shops, and the Old Town with cobbled narrow streets and little stalls selling traditional knicknacks. We then had our traditional bottle of champagne before heading off to the arena for the second show!

We were sitting in the exact same row as on Tuesday night, except just a further bit down the row, so we had a great view of both the stage and Green Room again. We tried not to look at the Green Room as we wanted to be surprised this time. Overall we got 7 out of 10 – we didn’t have Lithuania, Malta or Bosnia and Herzegovina and we had Slovenia, Georgia and The Netherlands. Afterwards, poor little Eva was crying and Joan looked devastated. 🙁 we felt especially sorry for Eva as we had our first ever interview with her, but I hope she will bounce back, she gave a great performance and did her country proud!

We went to EuroClub afterwards and they actually played a bit of Eurovision music for once, but as usual we spent most of the time outside on the terrace, that’s where the party seems to be at! Another great night in Baku, the days are flying by now, it will soon be time to come home!!