It finally arrived. Friday 8th March we headed off up to Edinburgh to catch our flight to Stockholm, completely oblivious to what was about to go down over the next 48 hours or so.
We got up to Edinbugh and found a really hipster little café for a little while, since there are no longer any fast food outlets at Edinbugh airport. I always thought there was at least a McDonalds (or even a Nando's!) at Edinbugh airport, but it's now full of Sushi bars and posh, expensive cafés, where the water is more expensive than all of the other drinks.
And then we got on the plane, and off the plane again in Stockholm and got on our flygbuss. Which was surprisingly comfy. I fell asleep, since the lights were off and it was warm and the gentle sway really gets to you haha. Except because they're not 3-point seatbelts, I nearly fell off the seat hahahaha. But getting off the bus was cold. Like, ooohhhh, Sweden is cold at the moment. But the woman who's house we were staying in came and picked us up, since she thought we would be tired. Awesome. Not only was I tired, but it was like -5°c. And we got a tour of her appartment block, and the 3 or so entrances to it. The lift was one of those wooden ones with manual bars you had to pull across haha. If I didn't like lifts, this would definately have been one of the lifts I would not be getting in. But our little appartment was really sweet and cosy, with a kitchen that was literally one step long, and I could touch the opposite facing walls with both hands. It did the job, and it was a breeze to clean, but it was still a shock that the bathroom was bigger than the kitchen!
We finally got to sleep at around 3:30am, in the most comfortable bed evaaarrrr. There was, however, not much point going to sleep, becaus the alarm was set for 5:30am. Not even joking, at 5:30am, my alarm went off, and cleverly (stupidly), I'd deliberately put it over the other side of the room so that I would have to get up to turn it off. But by that time I was awake, and even though we had half an hour waking up time, we managed to all be up for 6am. Amazing.
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| Sunrise over Stockholm |
So we got ready and left our place at around 7:30, and got down to the t-bana station and eventually got on the subway. We were heading off to Solna to meet my friend who's studying in Stockholm, but originally from America, outside of Friends Arena, to see if we could meet some cool people outside of the arena on the morning. So, at 8:30 ish we got there, and stood. We stood outside the front entrance, since there is a roller shutter door and there were people with Melodifestivalen passes going in that way. A few taxi's were going past but nobody important went in that entrance. We were cold.
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| Not even cold, it was FREEZING |
So we went around the corner to the side entrance, where we actually found a few fan girls waiting, and some guards were at the gates, guarding. A few taxi's were going past, and at this point we were in the shade, in -7°c. My toes were starting to go numb and my fingers were naturally cold. Nobody cool was driving past us, and we were trying our hardest to try and stay warm, but it's so hard! Amy went to get some hot chocolate for us all, and by the time she got back, it was lukewarm hahaha. But still, it was a nice relief from the freezing, bitter cold.
But just as I was finished my hot chocolate, Danny turned up in a taxi! He drove past us and the taxi dropped him off just outside of the door. Jenevia called out to him to come over here, but he just waved. Ok, so we saw Danny, and he reminded me how short he is, but all he did was wave. He didn't come over to see us and we didn't see anyone else, so we were a little annoyed at how numb the soles of our feet were. So to console ourselves, we went to Solna Centrum to watch Anton perform at a signing. It was warm! I have actually never been so cold in my life, and it was painful to walk, so an indoor shopping centre was heaven! When we got there, there were looooaaaaddssss of girls there already and the shopping centre was packed out with people even standing in shop windows. We wriggled through the crowd, yelling 'here man ya dafty, lads on tour like! lerriz through man, we propa wanna see Anton y'kna!' and got a good spot where we could see him from the front of the stage.
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| Mmmm, look at dat ear |
He was actually really good singing. I'm pretty sure he had the actual song playing in the background and just sang along with it, instead of singing to an instrumental, but he was good! :D
He came on stage and I shouted to my friend 'oh my goodness he looks better in real life than in the pictures! aahhhh!' He was awesome. But then he went down to sit at a desk for the signing, and we went and stood in the line. By this time we were pretty warm, and therefore a lot happier hahaha. We stood in the line for at least half an hour, probably longer, but they were handing out his press photo to people for him to sign, but they clearly hadn't expected as many people to turn up, and so they ran out of photos :( But instead, they found some paper from somewhere and plonked a load of it on Anton's desk telling him 'here, sign this for them'. I got a piece of paper signed… :D
Wooo! We got to him and were like, 'hi! We're from England!' and he said 'oh wow really? How are you?' and me and my friend looked at eachother and replied at the same time 'good!' then he started to sign it, and my friend said 'We're coming to see you tonight! We have a sign for you' and he was saying like 'oh wow, yeah!' and then I blurted out 'it's sparkly!' but I don't think he understood hahaha. So then we said thanks, and bye, and then we left :D He was such a sweetie! I love him hahaha
After that, we bought Ulrik's album, which was signed :) And we also got a photo all together then said bye to Jenevia, who went tot the dress rehearsal. It was really cool to meet her, since we met through Ola, and then we were in Stockholm together and finally met! Then it was lunch time, and I'm still planning on bringing some ranch sauce for Subway to try. They really need to use that stuff in their sandwiches. Then we headed into the centre of Stockholm to do some shopping, or at least we tried. It was really too cold haha. So after finding this:
And also a toilet, we carried on our Pressbyrån tour of Stockholm and bought some chocolate and iTunes cards and whatnot, and then went home, only to get lost, since Rådhuset t-bana station has two overground entrances, and we exited through the wrong one and ended up at the wrong end of the city practically haha. So after a quick pitstop at another Pressbyrån and an emergency bus ride, we managed to get home.
Now, here is a funny part. If you've ever been in a scary situation, you'll know EXACTLY how I felt. We got home and ate some crisps and chocolate and I felt really cold and was shivering, and the radiator wasn't helping very much. So I got into bed, just to get warm, and since it was so comfy, I was pretty happy to just lie there for half an hour or so to get warm. Except my two friends got into bed too, and we lay there just talking for a while. Then I remember it went quiet, and we were all pretty relaxed. Until suddenly my friend was like 'oh my god you guys, it's 10 to 6.' WE WERE SO CLOSE TO SLEEPING THROUGH MELODIFESTIVALEN IT ISN'T EVEN FUNNY. It was just by chance that my friend woke up when she did and noticed the time, because if she didn't I can guarantee we would have slept right through it since we didn't get any more than 3 hours sleep the night before. So now instead of shaking because of the cold, I was shaking because of the shock hahaha. So we quickly got ready, since we wanted to be ready and at the arena for 6:30, but that didn't really happen. I suppose we got there for around 6:50pm instead, so we were alright, and it was such a relief! I still can't believe how close we were to missing it and I would be beyond gutted if we did, like, inconsolable.
Still, we went, and had an awesome time! Danny was awesome and the acts were amazing! We really liked Anton, Robin and Ulrik and we really really didn't like Yohio. The rest were good too haha, at least bearable haha.
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| Anton |
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| Sean Banan |
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| Hellaw Dänniboy! |
And then when Robin won, we were pleasantly surprised! Like, no act from Andra Chansen has ever won before, and he didn't even win Andra Chansen! So we were so happy for him!
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| And clearly he wasn't very good at maths, since it took him a while to work out that he'd won! |
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| Har jag vunnit? |
And he really deserved to win :D Can't wait for eurovision now! It wouldn't have been no where near as good if Yohio had gone, haha.
After the show, I rescued a piece of confetti, but I'm not sure where it is now. I also managed to loose my glowstick. I've no idea where that went. It was in my pocket one minute, and not the next.
And so after the show, because we were on the floor, we had a little wander. Daniel Gill was standing chatting, and there were other normal people milling around, so we went closer to the stage, and saw Robin being interviewed. Then, we saw Danny with a small crowd around him, then he disappeared, but as we got closer to him, we saw that he was sitting on the stage having his picture taken with some girls. So then we
gently elbowed our way through… gently. And saw he was signing a few people's pieces of paper and then he took a photo with someone too. The girl standing next to us had her ticket signed by him, and I tried to shout 'Danny!' to him, but he didn't hear to start with, and I complained that it 'wasn't fair, because we were more from England' hahaha. So then after he finished signing that girls ticket, all the other people around him weren't doing anything. It was like they were waiting for him to talk to them, or for him to catch eyes haha. So I took my chance and my geordie courage took over, I just shouted up, 'Danny! Danny, we're from England!' and he looked down at us and smiled and said 'oh wow! cool!' and so I asked 'can we have a photo?' and he was like, 'sure!' so he got down the steps from the stage to where we were and got a hold of my shoulders and turned me round so that I was next to him, even though we weren't really allowed on the part we were standing on. He grabbed my friend too and put her on his other side, and then put his arms around us and pulled us closer in. Guys, not bragging or anything, but my cheek touched Danny's cheek. We we squished against eachother as my friend took the photo. And then he squished us tighter, as to give us a hug and then we left, having also conciously noticed how
beautiful he smells hahaha. My other friend who wasn't so bothered about getting a photo with him took our photo, and as he was posing with us, he said 'there's a lot of cameras', to which I replied, 'yeah, but I promise they're not all mine', haha, banter with Danny. LADS ON TOUR HORR HORRRR!!
I went back to my friend who said 'I think it took a photo', because she was using my big camera, but when I looked, SHE HADN'T TAKEN THE PHOTO!!! I was pretty upset actually, because all she needed to do was press the button down, but she didn't press it long enough for it to auto-focus and take, so it didn't take. But THANK THE HEAVENS, she managed to take one with her camera, and so we did actually get a photo with him. I am SO grateful for her for trying to take two photos, and it was just as well haha! So, this is me, and my friend, with Danny Saucedo, just after Melodifestivalen 2013:
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| Best moment - 2013 |
I still can't believe it. It was the best thing ever and I loved every second haha. He's so beautiful :P
I miss him, hahaha.
We then went to see the green room for a little bit, and saw Anton and Ulrik getting interviewed.
So yeah, then we went to Max, for a midnight Max. I am so totally going to open a Max franchise over here, because they really are Sveriges godaste hamburgare… I'm such a fatty :P
So after going to bed again at 3:30am, we had to get up again at 5:30am to get the t-bana to centralstation, and then the flygbuss to Skavsta airport and so on, so…
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| Sunday's breakfast |
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| We weren't kidding… |
Out of the 72 hours available on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I was up for 60 of them. That isn't as fun as it sounds! Yesterday I was the
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| Where even is this? |
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| Bored on the plane hahaha |
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| And here was a flight attendant that looked like Darin hahahaa |
So yeah, we had a super duper amazing time and wouldn't trade it for the world! It really was worth the wait and I'm definitely doing it again next year. Also looking forward to Eurovision in May, and also RixFm again in the summer! My friends are actually fighting over who's coming with me to each, and I can't cope anymore, I'm the one that likes Sweden hahaha, nah - I've converted them!
One thing that is a little philosophical, is that in my head, I speak Swedish, and there are songs which exist in there that don't exist in the outside world in England. I can start singing Amazing or Begging, and nobody will understand what I'm singing, or I can start talking about Danny, Anton, Ola, anyone, and still nobody will know what I'm talking about. Practically, Sweden exists in my head. It's not until I get over there, that I realise that everything which for me, only exists in my head, really does exist in real life, and I can start singing Amazing, and half the population could sing along with me. I will say, 'You know Danny?' and they'll be like 'yeah'. It's like all of my thoughts have been transferred into the real world, and going to Sweden is like going to my mind, but in a real place. Weird, but true…
Jordanavia :)
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