Eurovision and Denmark adventures
I just got back to Switzerland today after a freaking insane four days in Denmark. I don’t even know where to start, so I’m just going to start with EUROVISION! Because anyone who knows me would know that I am crazy about Eurovision.
I think the first time I watched Eurovision on TV was in 2004 when Ukraine won in Turkey with Ruslana’s “Wild Dances”. It was the first time that I really paid attention to European countries that weren’t France or UK and I became really interested in the Euro-Pop music scene. The 2009 Eurovision was the one that really got my whole Eurovision obsession going though. It was all thanks to the Norwegian guy named Alexander Rybak who stood up on that Eurovision stage and played his violin and his quirky folk song, “Fairytale”. From then on in, I watched Eurovision every year without fail. The thing is that Australia never gets a live broadcast of the show- we get it a few days after and by then I would have already known who the winner was. But even though I always knew who the winner was, I still thoroughly enjoyed watching the show and especially the voting during the finals. I became obsessed with Norway and thanks to Alexander Rybak I had this dream that one day, I would be in Norway one day (or some other Scandinavian/Nordic country), in the live audience of the Eurovision Song Contest.
And that dream, my friends, came to realization in Copenhagen, Denmark on the 10th of May, 2014.
It’s so crazy to go from watching one of your favourite annual TV events every year to actually being in the audience watching it all unfold. Being able to experience the “behind-the-scenes” of it all was really something special and to be in and amongst the crowd is amazing. There’s so many people from different nationalities all in one room, cheering for their favourites and enjoying the atmosphere. I really had to pee though and I didn’t want to miss out on any of the action, so that was a bit of a bummer.
Anyway, my absolute favourite this year was definitely Carl Espen for Norway. His song is absolutely gorgeous and he reminds me of a big teddy bear that needs a hug. I also have a very big soft spot for Norwegians 😉. Here’s his song:
Even though I was secretly going for Norway, I was not-secretly going for Sweden for the win. Sweden was definitely a top contender for the win this year but they came 3rd. Austria took it out this year- and deservedly so. It’s nice to see that there has been a shift in human rights and acceptance these past few years and Conchita’s win for Austria definitely cemented that. So even though neither Norway or Sweden won, I was content with the result (however I was kind of surprised that The Netherlands came 2nd).
My other favourites aside from Norway and Sweden were Iceland and Finland… and before anyone points out the fact that they’re all the Nordic countries, I also thoroughly enjoyed Armenia, Romania and Latvia (even though Latvia didn’t make it to the finals 🙁 )
I also met Martin a.k.a. TheSwedishLad which was super weird and coincidental because we had “planned” to meet up but because I didn’t have wifi I couldn’t communicate with him… but I casually bumped into him at a pizza restaurant and he filmed a little for his “Last Week in Sweden” vlog and you can see me in it here around the 25:23 minute mark 🙂
Soooo super cool! Make sure you go subscribe to him and stuff 🙂
Anyway, that kind of covers the EUROVISION part of my Denmark trip…
The weather was absolutely nuts during our time in Copenhagen- it would be absolutely bucketing down with rain for an hour or two, and then it would be super sunny and beautiful for the next hour or two. It made it really hard to plan out where we were going to go in terms of sight-seeing, but we were super lucky with the weather whenever we headed out to one of Denmark’s gorgeous palaces and gardens.
We managed to make our way to The Little Mermaid, which, although was super cool, was kind of also underwhelming.
This is me holding the little mermaid whilst sporting a Swedish flag.
We walked around Kastellet which is a star-shaped military fortress and it was FREAKING AMAZING. I am forever amazed by how beautiful and green and floral and pretty Denmark is.
We got in trouble by a military dude though ‘coz we walked on the grass and the military dude was all like, “Excuse me, you’re not allowed to walk on the grass” in his super hot Danish accent and we totally could have died right there and then ‘coz he had a huge-as gun but you know what they say, the Danish are the happiest people in the world.
On Sunday, we took a really random and unplanned day-trip to Møn, an island south of Copenhagen so we could go see Møns Klint. It’s basically one of those places that you see on Tumblr and you think to yourself, “I wish I could go there” but you’re too busy scrolling through your Tumblr feed to book a trip to Denmark and go on an unplanned day-trip to see the wonders of the world.
We pretty much winged our way to Møns Klint. We took a 1.5 hour train from Copenhagen to Vordingborg, and then a 30 minute bus to Stege and then another bus that went straight into the forest and I was so sure that the bus was going to tilt over and I’d have to climb out from the bus window in case it did. But it didn’t. It did, however, rain as though Denmark was a toilet bowl and someone was releasing themselves onto our pour souls… and by that, I mean that it was pouring down heavily with rain. We looked at each other while we were on the bus and we pretty much came to the conclusion that we were super crazy to just go on a day trip to the middle of nowhere while there was a storm brewing over us.
But we managed to get to our destination and we had to climb down these wooden stairs which were absolutely drenched in rain and I thought that I would soon plummet to my death because there was a clear sign that said “WARNING: Climb at your own risk” ‘coz apparently landslides are a thing during winter and spring.
Anyway, we finally made our way down the cliff and BOOM. We died.
No, we didn’t. We just saw this FREAKING AMAZING view.
I feel like we were so damn lucky with the weather because it literally stopped raining when we got there so we could take these amazing photos. Like, my photos don’t even do the place justice. I can’t believe places like this exist in this world- we’ve become so accustomed to city life and building “pretty” buildings that we kind of forget that nature exists. Like, in amongst all the shitty shit in the world such as stupid oil companies drilling in the Arctic and corrupt East-Asian countries like Malaysia cutting down all the rainforests, places like Møns Klint still exist… that’s why it’s important that we, as human beings with brains and morals, ensure that the Earth is protected, otherwise we’ll never have a place to escape to.
I found a few Australian shaped rocks:
Of course, as soon as we left Møns Klint, it started to pour down with rain again! I’m telling you, it’s like we were blessed by God during our Denmark trip.
We spent our last day in Denmark at Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen- the second oldest amusement park in the WORLD. Can you believe it?!
It was of course, bucketing down with rain but we, like the crazy kids we are, went on all the rides in the pouring rain! It was so painfully fun, especially being up in the sky going so fast that the rain literally becomes little spears raining down onto your face and into your eyeballs.
Luckily the rain stopped and the sun came out once in a while so we could take come nice photos of the garden 🙂
We also had a CRAZY HUGE stick of fairy floss that I couldn’t finish but somehow ended up all over my face nonetheless. And a super delicious meal that really didn’t go down very well at the end of the day after all the intense amusement park rides that had us hanging upside down in the air.
So yeah, if you couldn’t tell, I had the most amazing time in Denmark and it reeeeaaalllllyyyy sucked to have to come back to boring Switzerland (lol jks, I’m literally living in the most beautiful country in the world excluding all the Scandinavian ones) and to the reality of assignments and university and how terrible I am at French even after almost four months of living in Lausanne.
It’s just… well, I didn’t have much expectations of Denmark- it had always been the Nordic country that I had rated last because I was (and still am) so obsessed and in love with Norway. Denmark blew my mind. Especially the windmills.Oh, how I love the windmills. If every country in the world could just take notes on how environmentally savvy and awesome Denmark is, I think this world would most definitely be a better place.
Until next time!