Last night, the Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism invited all Eurovision Song Contest guests for a welcome reception. “Amazing”, “the best party ever”, speechless… and these were only a few reactions.
The bus for the reception left from Abdi Ipekci a bit later than scheduled, 18:30 instead of 18:00. Who cares, because the atmosphere was good! After a 20 minute bus ride, we arrived at the west bank of the Bosporus, where a boat brought us to the place where the party was taking place. We had the pleasure to be joined by Tie-break (Austria), Lisa Andreas (Cyprus) and Platin (Slovenia). One of the Tie-break guys told Lisa he liked her song and another one added that it was “not only the song he likes”. In front of the cameras he had the pleasure to kiss Lisa, and soon the other Tie-break members joined him…
The orchestra was back! At least, for a while. When we arrived, there were waiters standing in a row with drinks. A red carpet led us to the floor in front of the classical building and while the orchestra was playing, several huge buffets opened. From what we counted, there were at least five bars, five tables with food and five tables with Turkish deserts, such as baklava and Turkish fruit.
The orchestra stopped playing and the president of TRT gave a speech, just like Svante Stockselius, Executive Supervisor for the Eurovision Song Contest.
At the party, many participants were having fun! We saw Ramon (Spain), Xandee and her dancers (Belgium), Jari Silanpaa (Finland), Deen (Bosnia & Herzegovina), Zjelko (Serbia & Montenegro), Paul and Fabrizio (The Netherlands), Julie and Ludwig (Malta), Ruslana (Ukraine), Lisa (Cyprus), Athena (Turkey), Neiokõsõ (Estonia), Tomas Thordarson (Denmark), Max (Germany), Julia (Russia), Alexandra and Konstantin (Belarus), Fomis and Kleins (Latvia), Jonsi (Iceland), Tie-break (Austria) and maybe we missed more of them! Sertab, who won the Eurovision Song Contest for Turkey last year, was there too!
Around 21:30, suddenly the building was surrounded by fireworks. The Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism sure knows how to organise a party! Even Ruslana from Ukraine and Julia from Russia, who are both quite expressive, watched it speechless!
Around 22:30, the first boat left to the night club, where the party was about to go on. A few minutes later, the first boat back to the busses left. We saw Ludwig being carried away by two guards because he was sick. When we asked Julie what was wrong with her colleague, she told us that he is claustrofobic: “There were so many people waiting there for the boat, it was just too much for him”. When he came back from the toilet on the boat, he's was already doing better. “Ahh, you guys are from esctoday.com… I know your site”, Ludwig said.
