In On the way to Istanbul, your Chief Editor tells you about his preparations for the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest in Istanbul. A quick view behind the scenes of esctoday.com!
Departure time! After I woke up around 9:30 in the morning, I did some dishes, answered the last email and published an article on the website to announce our absence for a day. Our flight will be leaving at 14:00 instead of 16:00, the departure time we received earlier. No problem at all, as soon as departure time is still in front of us and not behind!
When we (Danny, Wouter and I) arrived at the airport, it appeared that there were no tickets yet. NO problem, because the person responsible for it came to the airport in a rush and arranged our tickets. None of us took a flight that late, because we checked in only half an hour before departure time. But anyway, thanks to our sponsor SLMC we finally ended up with tickets, on time! When we arrived at the gate, it appeared the flight was delayed for almost an hour. After a small 'inspection' of the other passengers on this Onur Air flight we found out that the Turkish singer Ege was also one of them! Very funny, as the companies behind esctoday.com (Interlize and MediaBattery) are the creators of his official website!
Finally, when we found our seats in the airplane, it appeared that one passenger was missing. Indeed, either the passenger should be found or the passenger's luggage should be taken out of the airplane. It seems they did the last thing, because it took another 30 minutes before they pushed back the Airbus A321. We took off around 15:40 instead of 14:00.
During the flight we got a nice meal. In fact, it was one of the best airline meals I ever had! Danny and Wouter, both vegitarian, offered me their plates to which I couldn't say no. My breakfast, my lunch and my dinner, sky high on 10,100 meters! And after the fourth time I asked the steward for a glass of water, he finally understood! How difficult can it be… wa-ter… ahh well, never mind!
I hope the temperature in Istanbul is better than outside. -54 degrees celcius at 10,100 meters high isn't really my favorite weather. With Vienna on the right, it's still claudy under us. Postcards of the different countries beneith us pass the screens, which gives me a pleasant Eurovision feeling! And here are the points from Austria!
17:00 CET, 18:00 in Istanbul. While we're passing Budapest I wonder if there are more people on this plane to visit Istanbul for the 49th Eurovision Song Contest. A few passengers have the word 'Eurovision' written on their front head, figurely speaking. I don't feel motivated to ask them, afraid for a face which says “where the **** are you talking about”. I am already looking forward meeting people in the press centre: “Helloooo we were on the same flight, remember me?”
After we landed we immediately took a cab to the arena, where we picked up our press accreditations. Svante (Stockselius, supervisor of the contest) gave me a call to say welcome, and minutes later we could finally shake hands. So far, we only spoke with eachother by phone and email.
Our hotel, Grand Halic, is pretty good! The bar/restaurant on the top floor gives a great view of the Istanbul skyline and the Golden Horn river. After a drink and a good salad it was finally time to sleep! Tomorrow it's going to be a busy day, with 11 countries scheduled for their first rehearsal!
