trippin' out

A blog entry?!  Yeah, the blog died again after Sochi, but I'm in the midst of some travel that I want to share, so let's revive it again. No daily entries, but maybe occasionally here and there… I still have more from Sochi to revisit sometime, too... Anyway, If you know me or followed the blog from years back, you know I'm a huge fan of the Eurovision Song Contest. To put it simply (as it seems everyone here I meet wants to know how an American would know or care about Eurovision:) my friends and fun in Munich led me to Oktoberfest, which led me to Schlager music, which led me to Eurovision. And as fan of kitsch, I can't think of a better version of live contemporary kitsch. Its always been a hope that someday I would get to Eurovision, though I didn't expect it to be so soon. But I'm here in Austria, and Vienna is doing a bangup job (okay maybe the fan club cafe leaves a bit to be desired, but oh well…the rest is great.) They have a great public stage area in front of their Rathaus where I've been each day, and then at the Stadthalle for the show each night. (The contest is decided partially by jury vote, and partially by audience vote; the jury performances are basically like dress rehearsals the night before the live shows that are broadcast for audience voting - making nearly a weeks worth of performances given the two semi-finals that lead to the finals on Saturday.) At any rate, here are some pics from the first couple days… I've taken up enough time writing and want to get out to whats going on in the city, so this is it for now. More later, hopefully… including backtracking to a few days I spent in Munich before coming to Vienna. Also, for any in the US interested, you can watch the Eurovision broadcasts at eurovision.tv; and my primary place for random and more immediate updates is on my instagram account.