I love Belarus!!!!
Or should that be The Netherlands?
The actual day arrived in Amsterdam where all the 21 delegations from every corner of Europe gathered together to meet the press and join them in a tour to the seaside town of Volendam, the home of 3JS.
The morning was spent meeting old friends from esctoday.com, oikotimes.com, escdaily.com and allkindsofeverything.com and radiointernational.com and escnation.com. I am sure there were many other web site present but it's hard to remember them all.....
Many many interviews were held and I have to say thanks you to the organisers for all their efforts in keeping everything running very smoothly with no long queues for interviews, plenty of time to conduct them and just generally being as helpful as they could be.....see another post later for more on this.....
After the interviews most of the press and all of the delegations travelled on coaches to the pretty town of Volendam, the red carpet was in full use and we all had a stunning lunch together while treated to a speech by the Mayors and a great performance by 3JS. You can see all the pictures from this on the front page of the www.esckaz.com site.
Lunch was over and we all left to have a family style photoshoot by the famous dyke. We are amazed that no one fell in the water but there were one or two moments when we felt like giving a few a gentle push;-))
At this time we were fortunate enough to interview some more delegations, and very lucky to get a one-to-one interview with Blue, the UKs performers this year. I have to say that getting close to then was difficult with the obvious press interest but back at the hotel we chatted to Lee Ryan and Simon Webbe. Very down to earth humble guys who are just looking to have a great time both here and in Dusseldorf and give their very best to entertain the Eurovision audience.....you can see the very quick interview at EurovisionKZ you tube channel.
We then left Volendam and travelled back to Amsterdam to prepare for the party that evening.