I've been eating Cheez Doodles and drinking Coke. Just to get into the mood of ESC, Eurovision Song Contest. I can't believe that in 26 hours we will all know the winner of this year's contest. And I'll have to wait a couple of months before starting with my ESC-period again.
The countries that went to the final of tomorrow from the first semifinal (on Tuesday) are:
The songs that have a link have been my favourites for quite a while, and I'm happy that all of them are in the finals now. On the other hand, I don't think that all of them are win-material. The ones that I have trust on to win are, in favourite order: 1) Norway - Fairytale - Alexander Rybak
2) Moldova - Nelly Ciobanu - Hora din Moldova
3) Greece - This is our night - Sakis Rouvas
4) Germany - Miss Kiss Kiss Bang - Oscar Loya
If any of my favourite songs win, I'll go crazy. I'm in that period of time... If any of the four songs that have been posted with videos win, I'll do whatever to be in that country and in the final arena of ESC 2010.
So, we have explored most of Bratislava. The city is definitely small. I heard from other people ( and Amin) that this city needs a maximum of three hours. I can say that it's a wrong approach. The city has it's charm. Sometimes it feels like being in a communist country at the same time as people are very aware of earning money in the most outrageous ways (now I'm talking about hostels). Somehow, I see many connections with the Czech Republic when it comes to some behaviours, after all...both countries were only one.
Summary of the day? Comes below. The Town Hall Conversation with a steel man. St Michael's Gate Lovely WEAPON! I want one. The Trinity Church, remind you of anything? The Donau River The National Slovak Theater (?) Paparazzis? I want the hat!!! The Martin's Cathedral.
We stayed for two reasons in Bratislava. First of all, my mother wants to buy some crystals and second of all, it's cheaper to sleep here than in Vienna. Of course we didn't stay in the sucky hostel of before (Patio Hostel) but changed to a hostel across the street called Blues Hostel. The stuff is much better and the rooms...OMG! A tremendeous change! Our room is called Amsterdam and has a paint in the ceiling showing some parts of Amsterdam
Tomorrow, we'll take it easy...buy the crystals...and visit the Castle of Bratislava, before heading back to Vienna or continue to travel, but this time to Budapest.
So, the first day has gone and the second evening has arrived. Even though I woke up pretty late we've done a lot...or at least it looks like that when looking at the big amount of pictures I've taken, with my digital camera and my phone. But sadly I'm not able to upload pictures from my phone, it doesn't want to connect through bluetooth with my HP Mini.
We walked on Mariehilfestrasse (for a good while) and arrived finally to the Museum Quartier, and my mother...a museum lover that she is, she forced me to enter a museum, if I'm not wrong its called, Kunsthistoriches Museum (the museum of historical art)...and I must admit that there were some pretty impressive statues and sarcofages (?) After a couple of hours in the museum, I gave up on trying to be interested. Museums are definitely not for me. If I visit a country, no matter if I've been there before or not...I really want to see the city, not what's inside a building. For my effort I got a small salary, a chocolate.
We continued to walk towards Stephansplatz, and took of course several pics on the way. But after having entered one of the many catholic churches...we saw a big protest march towards Stephansplatz against Israel and their bombing on Palestina. And the people who were taking part in this protest were SO many.
After our visit to Stephansdom we ate a bit of bread with different toppings. My mother took salmon while I took egg. Later we tried to stroll back to our place but came to the Staatsoper where we took some more pictures and bought some food for the coming days. Since it was too far away "home" we took the subway from Karlsplatz and ate some well deserved dinner. Right now I'm enjoying a beer with my mother.
Tomorrow we'll have a LOT of places to visit. I would have met a friend, Georg, whom I got to know during SMUN tomorrow but we'll meet when we get back from Bratislava/Budapest. Yes, we will be travelling further on. When? Probably tomorrow evening or Sunday morning. Where exactly? We'll see. Anyways, I'll be meeting Georg when we get back to Vienna. Now I have to look up hostels in Bratislava and in Budapest.
I got myself a new haircut and had a couple of VERY interesting lectures. We talked about how poverty is related to economy and a lot about gender discrimination in some parts of the world as well as how some "underdeveloped" countries have more equal rights between the genders than in European countries.
Back to the main topic, my haircut. I wanted to have this: And this is how it looks now: The first picture was taken right after I went out from the hairdresser, the second one just before my lecture would start and the third one on my way home - five hours after my new haircut was done.
I've had a great Saturday and a funny start of Sunday. Yesterday I went to get some more free stuff from SKHLM, went later home to make the movie for Carro&Martin, which I had promised them that I would do...to advertise Boliva as a good honeymoon-country. My movie is lovely, if you want you can watch it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyYlqWbaJwo and the music has been composed by my own maternal grandfather, Julio Martínez Arteaga. He dedicated this song to my grandmother, Victoria Trinidad Machicao de Martínez.
After having made the movie I took off to Carro&Martin's place, where we made a speciality from Vietnam (she had learned it by a Vietnamese friend) and ate it with white wine. Later on I had several drinks made for me. Very tasty! I got home half an hour before midnight, logged in to my usual pages and congratulated a mate from Bolivia on his 22nd birthday. We started to chat on Skype and I got surprised by what he told me. He had not been able to participate in the reunion of our class and he told me what he had heard about the party and about me. The rumours about the party were correct, but when it came to me...they were not, well...not completely! According to the rumours me and Vico had been a couple during the party. He is such a cutie and a good friend, and my "coussin". Such thing would not happen between us...and every time I keep thinking about what Abel (the birthday boy) said, I start laughing. It's just hillarious!
"WWYD?" stands for "What Would You Do" and is one of the recurring posts that will be available here in my blog from now on. We'll see how often they will be posted though.
Did you know that we may have only one week last on Earth? Yep, it's true. Next wednesday, 10th of September, the biggest particle-accelerator - called LHC, in Geneve, could contribute to the end of our lifes. There is a big risk that black holes will be formed when the particles filled with energy in LHC collide with the velocity of light. The black holes can devour the whole globe. What could also happen is that in the accelerator something called "strangelets", a not very usual matter, can be formed. what this matter would do is that it would convert normal matter to the same type of strange matter that strangelets are, which would also contribute to the end of the world. So, if you see something dark in the horizon next week, everything is lost!
But what will happen if we all survive the start of LHC, and we can continue to live our beautiful lifes, where would you like to see yourself in five years? This is a question that I often ask myself. What I definitely know is that I still want the same that I wanted when I first started uni, three years ago. You tell me your plans, and I'll tell you mine.
/// Mizz Martínez
Note: A "friends only"-post is available for a couple of my readers, just before this one.
Yesterday we decided that we would drive to a city, 24 miles from Umeå, called Lycksele. So after 10 in the morning we drove away and two hours later arrived in Lycksele and to the Zoo of the city. I have not been in zoo since I was around 13 years old.It was so funny to see the animals and take pics of them.
The special thingy with this zoo is that all of the animals live in Sweden only. I will defintely upload the rest of the pics when I am back in Sthlm.
After having been in the zoo, we went to eat burgers from up here, and they are definitely MUCH better than McDonalds and Burger King. The name of the company is Frasses, and you get everything in one menu. Should I get this car?
After our late lunch we took a walk in the centre of the small town, and paid a visit to a café. I have to admit that my caffe latte was not the cheapest that I have bought but it was the BEST caffe latte I have had (to drink) in my whole life. And that it had a design didn't make it worse.
On our way back to Umeå, we stopped close to Vindelälven (a river) and took pics. Muñeco loved that little outing to the nature, he even went down to the river and was jumping from one stone to another to not get wet. And right afterwards he started to run around the car, a sign that he was at his best and feeling good.
Yes, here comes a blog and a vlog. Funny, right? I have been thinking what I can do so that my phonie-friends can follow me at the same time as I post vlogs. Any ideas? The best thing may be to do as I am doing now. Post some in blog-form and a some in vlog-form. Help me, give me some ideas!!!
I went to the vet today. There is nothing to worry about. We will do Ultrasound on him to hopefully find out what the reason to him fainting the other day is.
It's Sunday, 1st of June, today. But three years ago it was a Wednesday and... my high school class was about to graduate.
Let me tell you a bit about the rituals that most high school classes have on their graduation, something we had too. Before the celebration starts organized by the teachers, the graduating class meets one last time early in the morning for champagne-breakfast.Champagne is drinken and strawberries are eaten during the breakfast.
Afterwards the students get breakfast from the school, the ceremony starts, students hold speechs (I was one of them) and last but not least, grades are given to them. At 11.00/12.00/14.00 (depending on the school) sharp they run out from school to their parents and friends who are waiting to congratulate them and give them presents. Pictures are taking with other classmates and hats are signed with greetings.
Later on, most students travel on truck beds in town at the same time as they drink and sing, and are happy. Afterwards, there is a reception with the closest family and friends where the students eat and get even more presents and congratulations. In the late afternoon there is a short break in the celebrations before the whole class meets and goes to a bar/discoteque and have a last evening together.
And when they are totally wasted...or just tired...they take the subway and go home for some well deserved sleep.
And that, my friends, is how the graduation day is celebrated in Sweden.
One word, which probably won't describe what really happened today, but I don't really care... WOW!
What happened then? Okay, let's start from the very beginning. I worked really well today with my homeworks. I managed to write an editorial and some more stuff and send it in time to the professor. Märta sent me a text message telling me that she'd come with me to Dima Bilan's performance. Me --> Afterwards I showered Muñeco so that he would look handsome when meeting another dog and her owner, who hopefully will take care of him while we are gone. Didn't he look just awesome? Later on, I was in a hurry back home to put more clothes on, since I didn't want to catch a cold. I managed to do everything according to my planed schedule, and I have to say that it was an achievment. I met Märta in the central station of Sthlm and together we travelled to the place where Dima Bilan was going to hold his performance. We were not even excited when we got there...but after a couple of minutes we even started to scream as the rest of the crowd. I pressume that we were about 1000 people +/- 100, but I have no idea. Anyways, Dima perfomed his song together with the violinst. Very good I must say...but not as good as during ESC08. It's possible that my opinion is a bit biased since I couldn't see very much ofhim. Most of what I saw was through my mobile. Here comes his performance and some talk, mostly in Russian.
The link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtX6_ZuY-u8 Later on it was time for autographs and the possibility of taking a picture with him was there. Everybody was supposed to form a line, but people started to push from different sides and some got all hysterical. I've been in very crowded places twice in my life. The first time was in February 2004, in Rome during my school-trip with my high school. We took the subway at around 19.00 and people were so close to each other that I could hardly breath. The second time was in May 2008, after Dima's performance. Since stupid parents brought their little kids to the performance and people started to push from several places at once to get a glimps of Dima, he abruptly ended the signing of autographs and left. So, I'm sorry. I couldn't take a picture of him and Mizz Martínez for you...next time maybe? I managed to take a picture with the boss of the Swedish version of ESC.
Even thought the crowded area started to disolve the heat in the shopping mall was still very high. We thought of going to a bar and drink , but changed our plans in the last minute. Both were tired and the crowd didn't make it much easier for us to just take it easy. It was a wonderful experience, and I'm sure that I'll be at the same event next year..if the ESC-tour comes to Sweden again that is. If the spirit was so high tonight...I wonder how the whole feeling must be during the contest. It must be really wonderful to be part of that party. I'll definitely be in Russia for that special event.
I didn't do much today...more than listen to Dima Bilan and his songs. No studies, since I wasn't in the mood....but I had a couple of surprises during the day, both good and bad.
Good:
My mother loves to shop, something that I hate to. If I go to a shop, I usually leave the place in less than two minutes unless I find something that I'm interested in. Not my mother. So, she was in the mood for shopping and she bought three clothings for me. And for once I agree with her taste. Now I can fill my wardrobe with two dresses and a fine shirt(?) -->
We know now that we'll travel to Bolivia on the 12th. I've already began to pack my bag.
Bad:
I thought that my essay that had to be handed in two weeks ago was perfect. Apparently, my teacher didn't think so. She read the first page and refused to continue reading the rest of my essay. So now, I have less than two days to fix my essay...
The woman whom's dogs we've taken care of before, refuses to pick up her phone since she knows that she'd have to help us out with Muñeco. What a person! We helped her twice, without even asking for any kind of compensation. And now she doesn't even have the gutts to say: "No, I don't want to take care of him." I'm so I'll have to look for a caring and loving person for my son elsewhere.
It's a bit over one hour left for the competition that I long for during exactly 356 days. I don't have much time do write a long post about tonight's contest since I have to get to the shop to buy snacks and coke for this special evening. But here comes my list of countries which I'd like to see as winners.
TOP8 Armenia Azerbaijan Denmark Georgia Greece Portugal Russia Sweden
You'd like to watch the biggest entertainment show/competition of this year? Watch it online: http://www.eurovision.tv
Have you noticed that I ESC? I just found out the order of the contestants on Saturday evening.
Here it is: 1. Rumenia 2. United Kingdom 3. Albana 4. Germany 5. Armena 6. Bosnia-Hercegovina 7. Israel 8. Finland 9. Croatia 10. Poland 11. Iceland 12. Turkey 13. Portugal 14. Latvia 15. Sweden 16. Denmark 17. Georgia 18. Ukraine 19. France 20. Azerbaijan 21. Greece 22. Spain 23. Serbia 24. Russia 25. Norway
Tonight is a BIG day for me. The first semifinal in Eurovision Song Contest 2008 starts, the first out of two. This is one of the best weeks that I long for during a whole year. Here comes an analysys of the songs which will be performed today. Out of 19, 10 will go to the finals on Saturday. Besides my short comment for the 19 songs, all of the ones I trust and believe in (seven to be precise) are linked to youtube, so that you can be aware of what I think is good. Here we go!
1. MONTENEGRO "Zauvijek volim te" (I love you forever) - Sorry Montenegro but...bad taste, and boring.
2. ISRAEL "The fire in your eyes" - Just annoying.
3. ESTONIA "Leto svet" (Summer, world) - Gosh, this song sucks!
4. MOLDAVIA "A century of love" - Jazz? I don't get the performce nor the song.
5. SAN MARINO "Complice" (Accomplice) - Sounds like a ballad from the 90s. Waste of time.
6. BELGIUM "O julissi" - Sang in an invented language. Isn't it the second time for Belgium? Sure, sounds completely okay...but the song having no meaning at all makes it a bit...meaningless.
7. AZERBAIJAN "Day after day" - Now we are talking. Opera vs Pop/Rock. Angel vs Devil. Opposites attract right? Here they certainly do. One of my favourites to the final. WATCH IT --> http://youtube.com/watch?v=cTNREz9CVs4
8. SLOVENIA "Vrag naj vzame" (To hell with it) - A good song. I like the song and the rhythms. Specially the refrain. WATCH IT --> http://youtube.com/watch?v=aUi9AjIDSmE
9. NORWAY "Hold on, be strong" - Like Like Like! I like the beginning, this girl has potential. And it's quite strange that I like this song after all, with all it's R&B-influence. However, this song should go to the final. WATCH IT --> http://youtube.com/watch?v=O0BIMDrfkz4
10. POLAND "For life"- Horrible. Definitely too calm for me. A big "no-no" from me.
11. IRELAND "Irelande douze pointe" - I really don't know what to think or do. Should I laugh? Cry? Do I like it? What does this parrot/bird say most of the time? The title...over and over again. No.
12. ANDORRA "Casanova" - Why would you use a concept that hasn't worked for the last couple of years? *yawn* Boring...another boring song.
13. BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA "Pokusaj" (Try) - Let's see... I don't see any special point in this song more than the strange costums. I guess it's a no for this one too.
14. ARMENIA "Qele Qele" (Come on, come on) - Yes, this is what I'm talking about. This song has winner-potential. This has "it" in ESC. WATCH IT --> http://youtube.com/watch?v=QOn2QBqDZ4E
15. The NETHERLANDS "Your heart belongs to me" - I like this one too. It has a couple of modern rhythms and some exoctical too, hidden in the music. WATCH IT --> http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ax3LY2uQN38
16. FINLAND "Missä miehet ratsastaa" (Where the men ride) - Horrible. Trash. DejaVu. Nothing new. Repetition sucks...and to sing in Finish doesn't make it better.
17. ROMANIA "Pe-o margine di lume" (To the end of the world) - Wonderful duo with two good singers who are able to combine their skills and make something beautiful. Strange, isn't? Me, who almost despises calmed songs, likes this one. WATCH IT --> http://youtube.com/watch?v=lhTzxeXe5MU
18. RUSSIA "Believe" - Sure, the song and the singer are okay. But..that's it. Just okay. And okay is not always enough. Sorry Alla and Olga, but I can't imagine seeing Russia in the finals. I may be wrong though...Let's wait and see.
19. GREECE "Secret combination" - This girls tries to be another Helena Paparizou..but wannabeas are not okay either. No harms to the song though. The song is one of the best tonight. Greece goes definitely to the finals. WATCH IT --> http://youtube.com/watch?v=8vAa4kaiJ2k
And I know that you are all asking the same question. How will Kerst (a.k.a. Mizz Martínez) look at this competition if she doesn't have a telly? The answer is: http://www.eurovision.tv
And I'll have to wait a couple of months before starting with my ESC-period again. 
On the other hand, I don't think that all of them are win-material. The ones that I have trust on to win are, in favourite order: 
and Amin) that this city needs a maximum of three hours. I can say that it's a wrong approach. The city has it's charm. Sometimes it feels like being in a communist country at the same time as people are very aware of earning money in the most outrageous ways (now I'm talking about hostels). Somehow, I see many connections with the Czech Republic when it comes to some behaviours, after all...both countries were only one.
Very tasty! 
What could also happen is that in the accelerator something called "strangelets", a not very usual matter, can be formed. what this matter would do is that it would convert normal matter to the same type of strange matter that strangelets are, which would also contribute to the end of the world. So, if you see something dark in the horizon next week, everything is lost! 
Should I get this car? 
, but changed our plans in the last minute. Both were tired and the crowd didn't make it much easier for us to just take it easy. 
It must be really wonderful to be part of that party. I'll definitely be in Russia for that special event. 
We helped her twice, without even asking for any kind of compensation. And now she doesn't even have the gutts to say: "No, I don't want to take care of him." I'm so 
I'll have to look for a caring and loving person for my son elsewhere. 
WIDGETIZE