Anastasia

The Eurovision Song Contest 2010 - Part II: Predictions....

With one space left in the final, the cameras were focussed on Sweden’s Anna Bergenthal, and Denmark’s Chanee and N’evergreen. The scores will be revealed on Monday, but with the final place being awarded to the Danish duet singing a song that had been rejected by the Swedish broadcaster two years ago, you have to feel some sympathy for Bergenthal. Fair play to Denmark, as the couple finally found the spark of performance that has been lacking in this Schlager pop number that throws everything including the kitchen sink at the key change. Which looks to have been successful.

A Eurovision final without Sweden is going to be a strange place, up till now they’ve been there every year they’ve entered, but it’s a welcome return to Cyprus for the Saturday night show as Jon Lilygreen and the Islanders proved a popular qualifier. The fact that Jon is welsh, and the backing band includes Scots and Irish musicians might give the BBC some food for thought when the Cypriot result is compared to the UK’s Josh Dubovie.

Still, it should mean we get one tradition back, namely the annual exchange of twelve points between Greece and Cyprus!

via blogs.thestage.co.uk

Yes!! After five years of absence at the Eurovision Song Contest ,Cyprus passed to the grand final.Watched by an audience of 18,000 in the Telenor Arena, Oslo, Norway, and more than 120 million TV viewers in front of their TV sets in no less than 45 countries, the Final of the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest will be held tonight, starting at 21:00 CET (22:00 EET).

For the first time ever in a Eurovision Song Contest Final, you will be able to cast your vote right from the beginning of the show by SMS or phone in all 39 participating countries. The televote will account for 50% of each national vote, with the remaining 50% being determined by 5-member expert juries in each participating country. The combined vote of each nation will be transformed to the Eurovision scheme, with 12 points to the first placed entry, 10 to the second placed one, and then from 8 down to 1 point from the 3rd to the 10th place, and then they will be announced live on air by spokespersons from each country. 

Tonight, you can also watch the Final of the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest on your mobile phone. The mobile site is available to many different hand sets. Check this out 

If you are not situated in one of the 45 countries where the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest is broadcast live, you can watch the show here, on ESCTV player.

Now, if you ask me which country I'll vote tonight, of course it'll be Greece!!! I can't vote my own country, but even if I could I'd give 12 points to OPA! This said, I also hope Cyprus will be in the first ten out of twenty-five.

Jon Lillygreen from Wales, UK and The Islanders, will sing for Cyprus "Life Looks Better In Spring" My ... top ten exit poll! 1. Armenia 2. Greece 3. Ireland 4. Iceland 5. Georgia 6. Turkey 7. Azerbaijan 8. Germany 9. Cyprus 10. Israel

Buried in Work With Some Ice Cream

The last week of May has been particularly hectic at work with all school exams scheduled between May 25 and May 28. I'm still working on the French beginners exam paper due tomorrow. I've edited it three times so far! On Tuesday, there was a slight problem as some of my Elementary kids turned up 2 hours later - that was the second exam session - while they were scheduled for Tuesday 2:30 pm not 4:30 pm! They're ten-year-old kids who only came on the right day but at the wrong time! And they had all studied so hard! Fortunately my eighteen seats accommodated everyone ...and the exams went on uneventfully!

In between exams I had some ice cream to cool me down and while savouring my rasberry, blueberry and vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips, I googled ice cream! And here's what I found: Ice cream was invented in Italy. One theory says that the Grand Duke of Toledo was probably the first person to create and eat ice cream, something like the sort we eat now. This was meant to keep his drink cool with snow, you see, that was the only way in which they kept drinks cool in the 16th century. The Grand Duke of Toledo invented a mixture of boiling grape juice, which he poured over iced milk, and drank this in the middle of the night to get rid of his indigestion! He then tried mixing frozen milk and egg yolk, and there was the first ice cream! According to some other site (please forgive me for being too lazy or too tired to post the links), there's evidence that in England ice cream was served to the king in the year 1671.

Ice cream was a really fashionable food in 17th century England which was only fit for royalty and the very rich - something like foie gras and Dom Perignon today. Then in 1856, an Englishman called William Fuller invented an ice cream making tub and published a book on ice cream recipes. And in the 20th century, refrigerators made it possible for ordinary households in England and in the world to make and store ice cream for themselves. But no one could imagine then the evolution of ice cream in the 21st century - it's something like the evolution of technology - ipad for instance!

Nowadays, there's a trend for ....unexpected and revolutionary flavours, like cheese and onion ice cream, tomato and egg ice cream or ...tuna fish ice cream! To me that sounds rather dreadful, although I did try tomato and egg ice cream at a Japanese restaurant and hated it, of course! I'd rather stick to my all classic favourite ice cream flavour: pistachio and chocolate chips..or vanilla ice cream with Crepes Suzette! How about you?

Kataklysmos - Flood Festival in Larnaca

A Greek Orthodox festival with strong pagan roots focusing primarily on water, Kataklysmos or Festival of the Flood marks the day of the Holy Spirit. 

Coastal cities make the most of the opportunity, staging concerts and games near the waterfront, but even inhabitants of inland towns and particularly children – their water guns a necessary accessory, enjoy a good ‘splash’. The feast of the Pentecost or Whitsun is marked 50 days after Greek Orthodox Easter. It is known also as the day of the Holy Spirit as it celebrates the descent of the Holy Ghost to the Apostles. 

In Cyprus, the celebrations also hark back to the Old Testament tale of Noah’s Ark, the Greek myth of Deukalion and ancient ceremonies in honour of Aphrodite and Adonis. Larnaka is particularly proud of the festivities it puts on for several days to celebrate Kataklysmos. 

Hmmm....he must have forgotten the parasol!

The sea front promenade takes on the appearance of an open-air fair with scores of stalls selling toys and traditional food. Traditional culture takes pride of place with a competition for chatista or rhyming songs in the Cypriot dialect. Other performers include popular Greek and Cypriot singers and dance troupes. In line with the spirit of the celebrations, events include competitions in the water.

Start:	May 23, 2010
End:	May 24, 2010
Category:	Cultural - Cultural Festival
Organiser:	Larnaka Municipality

via www.visitcyprus.com

Since Friday, Larnaca has been a pole of attraction for many tourists and people from all over Cyprus. Flood festivals are also organised in all coastal towns but none equals the glamour of the one in Larnaca. Officially, the festival starts tonight and ends tomorrow with a display of impressive fireworks. However, for the people of Larnaca the Flood Festival started on Friday and the fun will go on for about a week. In the past, I used to attend this event and join the fun almost every year, but the last few years I've been rather reluctant to mingle with crowds in noisy places. I'm not agoraphobic, it's just that I now prefer quiet places where I can really relax and enjoy myself.

Photos and Video - @anastasia.marou

The Eurovision Song Contest - Part I

I rarely watch TV but there's one show I never miss: The Eurovision Song Contest. I've been watching this show since I was 12. When I was a student in Switzerland, all my Greek friends would gather together at my place to watch the show and cheer for Greece and Cyprus, of course. I'm not really a respected Eurovision fan as I don't know or remember the details of 54 yearly shows! Considering I was not born when the Contest started in 1956, here is some more info about the show.

Already for 54 years, the Eurovision Song Contest is Europe's favourite TV show. After more than five decades featuring some 1,100 songs, the contest has become a modern classic, strongly embedded into Europe's collective mind. Read on to find out how it all started over half a century ago...

After 54 years, the database with Eurovision Song Contest facts and figures, stories and anecdotes is huge! A true, die-hard fan knows how many points Luxembourg got in 1980 (56), who came last in 1972 (Malta, with 48 points) and how many times the Netherlands got 12 points in 1996 (once, from Austria). Because no one can expect you to become a living Eurovision Song Contest encyclopedia, Eurovision.tv takes you through the contest's history in fast forward. It's all you need to know before you dive into the rich history of the Eurovision Song Contest...

How it all Began

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) was formed on 12th February 1950 by 23 broadcasting organisations from Europe and the Mediterranean at a conference in Devon, United Kingdom. It was on the 6th of June, 1954, that Montreux became the venue for the first transmission by the EBU's Eurovision Network of the Narcissus Festival and its flower-bedecked procession floats. The first Eurovision viewers eagerly watched on four million television sets in homes, bars, and shop windows in Germany, Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

An Ambitious Project

In 1955, the EBU came up with the idea of an international song contest whereby countries, represeted by their respective public broadcasters, would participate in one television show, to be transmitted simultaneously in all represented nations. This was conceived during a meeting in Monaco in 1955 by Marcel Bezençon, a Frenchman working for the EBU. The competition was based upon the Italian Festival di Sanremo, held for the first time in 1951, and was also seen as a technological experiment in live television: In those days, it was a very ambitious project to join many countries together in a wide-area international network. Satellite television did not exist yet at that time, and the Eurovision Network comprised a terrestrial microwave network. Le Grand-Prix Eurovision de la Chanson Européenne was born!

The Success

Without interruption, the Eurovision Song Contest has been broadcast every year since 1956, which makes it one of the longest-running television programmes in the world. In 2003, the first ever Junior Eurovision Song Contest took place, while the Eurovision Song Contest celebrated her 50th anniversity 2005. Viewers picked ABBA's Waterloo as best ever Eurovision Song Contest song. In 2007, Europe could see the first ever Eurovision Dance Contest.

The 2008 running saw a record of 43 represented countries, as Azerbaijan and San Marino joined the family. The competition has been broadcast throughout Europe, but also in Australia, Canada, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Jordan, Korea, New Zealand and the United States, even though these countries do not participate. In 2010, the format will be launched outside of Europe so that various other parts of the world will be introduced to the concept behind the show.

via The Eurovision Song Contest - Oslo 2010

In the Eurovision Song Contest 2005, our Elena Paparizou gave Greece the first prize for the first time!

And last year's winner was Alexander Rybak from Oslo, Norway, who enchanted Europe with his Fairy Tale

Monday's Greek Recipe - Eliopita - Olive Pie

I don't think there's a Greek who doesn't love pies for a snack. Pies are an important part of Greek cooking: cheese pies, meat pies, spinach pies.... And since the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, I learnt to make the best leek pie ever - Alkis' favourite. I'll give you that recipe some other time. Olive pies are particularly popular in Cyprus, they are delicious and constitute a great healthy snack.

Eliopita - Olive Pie

Ingredients

• 4 teacups flour
• 2 teacups black olives
• 2 teacups warm water
• dried and ground mint
• 2 dry onions, finely diced
• 2 fresh onions finely sliced
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teacup olive oil

Directions

• Remove the olive pits and finely chop the olives or get chopped black olives without the pit  from the supermarket. I recommend, however, Kalamata black olives for this pie.
• Add the mint and the onions.
• Mix the flour, the baking powder and the olive oil in a large bowl.
• Add the warm water and continue mixing until you get a fluid dough.
• Add the olive mixture to the dough and continue to mix.
• Flour a pan or a pyrex plate and put the mixture into it.
• Bake in medium oven for about an hour until golden brown.

Welcome to my Study

Years ago, when Alkis and I could afford to get our own place, we agreed on three things:

1. It should have a fireplace.

2. It should have a great view.

3. It should have a study for me!

My study room is my most favourite room in our flat. It is the place where I can have some alone time and relax after a long day at work. This is where I blog from, read, write, listen to my favourite music, daydream, or simply enjoy a cup of coffee while looking out the window, contemplating the view. In the summer months, I'd rather sit outside on the veranda with a good book or my laptop. Depending on the mood, I watch my favourite DVDs when Alkis watches a football match in the living-room. But I also do a lot of work, such as marking and occasionally lesson planning - if I don't have the time to do that at the school.  

I love books and despite the advances of modern technologies, nothing will ever replace them.

My favourite armchair made of real leather! I've had it for 10 years and it's as good as new!

I hate listening to music on the computer so I'd rather play here my favourite CDs - Neil Diamond, The Beatles, Simon and Gurfankel, The Bee Gees and , of course, Greek music. I also love the recently added fountain which I decorated with shells and pebbles I collected on my walks at the beach.

All photos by @anastasia.marou

BMW Headstone for Car Fanatic Steve Marsh

Steve Marsh's BMW headstone in Manor Park Cemetery, East London

- Photo Credit - EASTNEWS

Updated: Friday, 07 May 2010, 12:58 PM EDT
Published : Friday, 07 May 2010, 12:58 PM EDT

(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) - You can't take it with you when you die. But at one London cemetery, you can keep an expensive replica close by.

The Daily Mail reports that when 51-year-old Steve Marsh died in his sleep last year, his family decided to make a big gesture of it. They got permission to bury him under a granite headstone in the shape of his favorite BMW M3 convertible.

"He was a car enthusiast all his life, he loved cars from a child," his daughter, Kerry, told the Daily Mail . "He always drove BMWs, we've all got them. We couldn't just give him a normal headstone."

She added that the family had to order the roughly $74,000 headstone from China and have it shipped to England, reports the Daily Mail.

"It weighs about a ton and was made out of one piece of granite. I think my Dad would absolutely love it," she said of the former Ford engineer.

Dad, yes, but some locals are wondering how such a display could be allowed.

"You have to admit it's totally different to everything else around it," local resident Rene Dryden, 33, told the Daily Telegraph . "It's definitely not my taste. I think some people will say it's tacky and it could end up as a target to be vandalized.

"It could open the floodgates for anything to be built in a cemetery," she added. "When I walked past it the other day, though, I have to admit it did make me smile."

The privately owned Manor Park Cemetery allowed the unusual headstone after discussions with Marsh's family, reports the Daily Telegraph .

via www.myfoxny.com

Hope Steve Marsh rests in peace.

Thanks, Mum!

 

Mum and I haven't always got on well. We fight more often than not, we don't understand each other, we hurt each other. This has been happening since I was a teenager. My brother was the wonder child, I was the odd one out. I wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend at sixteen and when I trusted her and told her I was in love with one of my classmates, all she said was "I'll tell your father and you will be punished very severely." I was glad she told Dad because he did not threaten with punishment, he just asked me to talk about it. And I remember we had a great talk and I  felt like I was talking to my best friend. 

 
When I met Alkis - my husband - at eighteen,  mum was furious! According to her, he was much older than me (7 years older!) and most importantly, he was poor!  Dad said he wanted to talk to me about Alkis. He asked me if he loved me and if I loved him and  the answer was yes. Then Dad said : "That's all that matters and I trust you." You can say, I was daddy's girl, and I still miss him so much. I don't think I'll ever get over his passing away seven years ago.

Mum and I still argue a lot. Mostly for trivial matters . Yet, I owe her a lot. I owe her who I am and if I was mad at her at times, I would like to apologise because I love her very much.  I am not a mother myself, but right now I would like to tell the whole world how much I love my mum. She's the world to me!

. s

Dancing With The Stars

Dancing with the Stars is a Greek reality show airing on ANT1 and filmed live in Athens. The show is based on the United Kingdom BBC Television series Strictly Come Dancing and is part of BBC Worldwide's Dancing with the Stars franchise. I'm not really a great fan of reality shows - I watch TV once or twice a week but this show caught my eye most probably because I am such a bad dancer!

As a child I hated ballet and would rather have French lessons in my free time.But for some unknown reason - was it because I was a top student? - my teachers always wanted me to ...dance with the stars! All my other classmates were ballet stars ....I felt the odd one out. But I did my best! Hope you can pick me out on the photos! :-)

Weekend Getaway in Protaras

Protaras has always had for me a kind of magic spell that attracts me to unspoilt sandy beaches, rocky lagoons and an immense blue that I can contemplate hours on end. This magic place lies only 50km east of Larnaca - a 30-minute drive on the highway. Since Easter, Alkis and I have been planning to spend a weekend there but something would come up the last moment and we postponed it. Finally, we managed to get there for our holiday weekend on May 1st. Naturally, we stayed at our favourite hotel - The Golden Coast Hotel.

It was such a relaxing weekend - exactly what I needed before the load of work at the end of a school term. The weather said we were in for a stormy weekend but the downpour on Friday afternoon did not put us off! Well, it was cloudy and a light drizzle had started by the time we left, but we had some great weather on Sunday....even if the sun was playing hide-and-seek with the clouds. I tried to play photographer again and took this picture! 

All Photos by @anastasia.marou