RUSSIA is the winner!

The winner of 2008 Eurovision Song Contest is RUSSIA! Congratulations! Dima Bilan came to win, and succeeded.

It was an interesting show which we watched together with our friends Kristi, Eve and Ragnar. Before the show started at 10 p.m, we had a Eurovision history quiz to find out who is the "Best Eurovision Expert" among us; and it turned out, that EVE is the one who knows everything about Eurovision history!

After that, we started to watch the show and to make it more interesting, each of us predicted which song is voted to which place in the end. We named our favourite songs, too, but knowing the politics of voting, we knew already beforehand, that our favourite song will not most probably win. Kristi liked Latvia, Erik liked Finland, I liked Armenia, Israel and Greece, Ragnar Sweden and we all thought Germany was good (which, in the end, came to the last place together with Poland and United Kingdom).

But we concentrated to our predictions till the end, and each of us had to say TOP 3 and also who will be the last. Kristi and I guessed Russia will be the winner of 2008; others thought it would be Sweden; but they all offered Russia the 2nd place. So we weren't much wrong at all! All of us thought Sweden is in TOP 3, which didn't come true at all. And I predicted United Kingdom to be the last one, which was right.

The European people decided the TOP 3 this year was:

1. RUSSIA

2. UKRAINE

3. GREECE

Congratulations to all of them! MOSCOW is waiting!!!

Photo: Lets have some wine and Eurovision can start!

Eurovision Song Contest - WHO WILL WIN in 2008?

The Eurovision week has started again.
Who will win this year in Belgrad? It will be known on Saturday!
Only 5 countries go through the final competition without competing in semi-finals: the 4 BIG COUNTRIES: Germany, UK, Spain and France + the winner of last year: Serbia. All other countries compete in semifinals.

This picture shows the countries who participate in 2008. Dark green - automatic finalists. Moss green - Participants in semifinal 1. Light green - Participants in semifinal 2. Grey - Non-participants.

The first semi-final was held on Tuesday. We watched it together with our neighbours Aune and Andres having good Australian wine and cheese. It was fun, though Estonia didn't get enough votes to be able to participate on Saturday's finals.
The countries we'll see again on Saturday are:
1. GREECE
2. ARMENIA
3. FINLAND
4. POLAND
5. NORWAY
6. ROMANIA
7. BOSNIA and HERZEGOVINA
8. RUSSIA
9. ISRAEL
10. AZERBAIJAN

Photo: Watching the first semifinal of Eurovision Song Contest with our neighbours Aune and Andres.

The 2nd semi-final was yesterday. From there, the 10 countries which got a passport to the Grand Final, are:
1. ICELAND
2. SWEDEN
3. TURKEY
4. UKRAINE
5. ALBANIA
6. LATVIA
7. CROATIA
8. DENMARK
9. GEORGIA
10. PORTUGAL

Congratulations!!!

Weekend full of fun in Helsinki, Finland

From May 16-19 we visited Helsinki, the capital of our neighbour country in north - Finland. With one weekend, we managed to do a lot - spent some nice time with Erik's sister's family (I did some shopping with Helen while Erik and Kert looked after little beautiful girls Emily and Anna; we had a nice pizza dinner, watched the funniest-film-ever "Notting Hill"), visited the SeaLife waterworld, had fun in Linnanmäki together with our Finnish friends, went to sauna and had a great late dinner at Minna's place. A wonderful weekend indeed :).

Helsinki is very close to Tallinn. It's about 100 km's across the sea, so there are 2 main options to go to Helsinki: a boat or a plane (and an helicopter, too); or then drive through Russia to Helsinki which takes 10 times more :). We used the boat which is the most common; and it was 1,5 hours trip.

Photo: The Main Cathedral in Helsinki. This is the only sightseeing we did in Helsinki. As both I and Erik have been to Helsinki more than we can count in our ten fingers, then sightseeing wasn't really necessary.

Photo: I and Kert in front of the Main Cathedral in Aleksanterikatu.

Photo: On Friday, we spent a lot of time with Emily and Anna. They are fun to be with :). Always make us laugh!

SEALIFE WORLD

On Saturday morning, we headed to Linnanmäki Amusement Park, but before it was opened, we had time to visit Sealife WaterWorld. It's one of the 23 centres across the world which aims give the possibility to experience the wonders of underwater miracles by creating as natural as possible living environments for the creatures of the exhibition. It was indeed a nice journey to underwater world!

Photo: Sealife World building

Photo: Some colourful fish :)

Photo: I and Erik in Sealife WaterWorld.

Photo: I and Kert in IceAge section in Sealife WaterWorld.

LINNANMÄKI AMUSEMENT PARK

Already last Autumn, I and my Finnish penpal Minna made a plan, that as soon as Spring arrives and Linnanmäki Amusement Park opens, and it's suitably warm weather again, we'll visit Linnanmäki with our families to have a fun Saturday. Three things of those came true:

1. Spring arrived

2. Linnanmäki opened

3. We visited it

BUT the weather didn't get warm... It was prrrr...... sooooo..... cold! But, as we live in nordic countries, we are used to such cold weather, and had fun despite of the cold hands and everything else...

Linnanmäki is a very popular Amusement Park both among Finns as well as Estonians. It's opened since 27 May 1950, and each year, they add some new attractions.

Photo: The postcard bought from Linnanmäki. It's an Amusement Park both for children and adults - everyone can find something there.

Photo: Our group in Linnanmäki: Aleksi (Minna's friend's son), my Finnish penpal Minna, Minna's husband Tomi, I, Erik and Kert.

Photo: Minna and Tomi in the attraction called SALAMA which is a brand new attraction - added for this summer. It was great!!! We all tried it twice.

Photo: Attraction called KIRNU - it was added to the Park in 2007, and it's the scariest of all! We shouted the whole time of fear while going down headfirst. It was AWFUL! But we enjoyed it a lot (it was 4 of us who did it: Kert and Erik, I and Tomi), and did it even twice :). When you look carefully the photo, you can see Erik's scared face!

Photo taken by Minna.

Photo: My first nightmare: RAKETTI. It's the thing which goes up with a veeerrry quick speed. I absolutely hate it! But I just couldn't help, I had to try it again... Tomi, Minna and Aleksi passed it.

Photo taken by Minna.

Photo: Attraction called KIEPI. Ruffles your guts... As it was in the end of the day, I decided to pass it, too, so only Erik and Kert participated in it.

Photo: The last ride (as one could get wet and it was deadly cold, so the only chance to experience it, was in the very end of our day, before sauna...) called VONKAPUTOUS.

Photo: Kert, Aleksi, Minna and Tomi in PIKAJUNA.

Photo: We have arrived to Minna's place. She lives in a nice small town called Riihimäki. Here you can see me, Minna and her cat Tane (one of three) before we were going to the sauna to heat ourselves up after such a cold, but enjoyable, day in Linnanmäki!

Meeting my Danish penpal Marina

I enjoyed my long weekend (May 9-12) in beautiful sunny Copenhagen very much... And could meet my Danish penpal Marina, too! It was almost 5 years ago when we met the last time - in August 2003.
Photo: I and my penpal Marina in front of the fountain in Royal Gardens.
Photo: I, Marina, and the Little Mermaid (in Danish: Den lille havfrue) in the back. A MUST to see in Copenhagen (with loads of other tourists)...

2 roe pictures

Here you can see the difference of amateur and almost-professional (me and Erik); and the difference of the photolenses which are in front of my Nikon D50 and in front of Erik's Nikon D200. These photos are taken on the same place, at the same time, about the same distance (Erik was a bit behind me), both lying down on the grass.
All in all, it was a wonderful experience. We saw this roe very far away, and didn't move towards her at all. She was the one who got curious about us, as we were lying down and she didn't really understand who we are and what we do there. She started to walk towards us murmuring and making hooks until she was about 17 metres from us. Then, suddenly she got scared and ran into the safe distance again with lots of barking. Photographed by Erik, Lääne county, Estonia, May 2008.

Photographed by Karin, Lääne county, Estonia, May 2008.