A Czech rollercoaster

This week I heard about the fact that there was a fair in Prague with Dutch attractions on it. It was even said that they would have "kroketten" and "frikandellen", which was a reason for me to go there with a couple of colleagues. Unfortunately the Dutch snacks-salesman had already left, but I did get a ride in both a Dutch and a Czech rollercoaster at that fair.

The difference was noticeable. The Dutch attraction was beautifully made, with lots of accessoires, safe and gave me an exciting ride. Just the kind of rollercoaster I am used to. The Czech rollercoaster however was ugly, but looking spectacular. The ride itself was quite ok, but the most exciting part was the fact that you never knew for sure if you were going to survive the next descent. The control room of the rollercoaster looked like it had not changed for the past 40 years, there was some rust on the tracks and when you looked down you would see a table with some very old and basic tools to do maintenance. Luckily all of the people who dared to go on this ride survived it, but it was certainly an experience we will never forget. :)

Easter

So today is the first day of Easter. And since my girlfriend is not coming this weekend and my flatmates are out of town, I had to hide my own Easter eggs this morning. That was still quite fun to do, but it was not so much fun to search them afterwards. I was done in about 1 minute. They tasted very good though. :)

So next week there is another holiday for me as a Dutchman: Queen's Day. And I will get to celebrate it in Prague maybe even better than I would have done in the Netherlands. On Thursday, I will go to the embassy to eat Dutch food and drink Heineken-beer. On Friday I will go to a special Queen's Day-party at a nice club here in Prague. Should be a good week for me. :)

And the winner is...

(...)

I hope you all enjoyed listening to the songs in the contest, but now it is time for the moment of truth. Who will win the International Song Contest 2011? Which country collected the most points during the past 1.5 week? Who will have the honour of being victorious in the first edition of this contest? We will find out soon.

I can tell you that in total 15 people voted in this contest, from 7 different countries. I would have loved to share a link with you guys where the votes would appear just like in the traditional Eurovision way, but unfortunately this was not possible due to technical problems. So you should believe me when I say that it was an exciting contest in the beginning, even though the final result is very clear. In total, 14 out of all 15 people gave points to the winning country (the only person who didn't, was not allowed to, because she submitted it) and 8 people put this particular country in first place. In the end, the winning country had more than twice as many points as the runner-up. So it was a very convincing victory for...


FINLAND!!!


Congratulations to Samu, Raul, Sami, Riku and Osmo from Sunrise Avenue and of course to my friend Essi from Finland, who submitted the winning song! I already knew that your music taste was great, but now we both know that the rest of the world thinks the same! Please do keep on sending me some more songs from your home country.

Now, for the ones that are interested to see how their country did in this contest, here are the final results:

1. Finland	100
2. Belarus	45
3. Netherlands	44
4. Latvia	44
5. Philippines	37
6. Mexico	28
7. Croatia	24
8. Czech Republic	22
9. Estonia	21
10. Chile	15
11. Saint Lucia	10

Finally I would like to thank all those wonderful people that voted in this contest, it really made me happy every time I received a new list. Especially, I would like to thank my close friend Laura from Estonia, who actively helped me in encouraging people to vote and even posted a link to the contest on her blog! Thanks a lot, I really appreciated your effort.

So I hope you all enjoyed this contest and all those interesting songs as much as I did and maybe I will do such a contest again in April 2012. :)

Take care!

International song contest

The moment has arrived. My dream about doing my own song contest is finally coming true. During the past week, some selected friends had the opportunity to send in a song from their home country for this contest. And because of all the wonderful people who submitted a song, it has become a very multinational contest with participants from 4 continents!

Below you can find the videos corresponding to all songs that were submitted. Listening to all of them should take about 15-45 minutes, depending on how fast you listen. :) And please do make notes while listening to remember which songs you liked best, as you have to vote for your favourites as well. The voting process is explained below. For now, just sit back and enjoy the music.


1. Latvia: Instrumenti - Born To Die




2. Saint Lucia: Lisa J. Weekes ft. Leebo - Hold Me Close




3. Belarus: J-Mors - Ne Umirai




4. Finland: Sunrise Avenue - Hollywood Hills




5. Croatia: Jinx - Na Plazi




6. Netherlands: Handsome Poets - Dance (The War Is Over)




7. Chile: Chico Trujillo - La medallita




8. Philippines: Sandwich - Two Trick Pony




9. Estonia: Antonina - Pakike




10. Mexico: Mana - Clavado en un bar




11. Czech Republic: Čechomor - Proměny




So now about the voting process. I kindly ask everyone who has listened to all these songs to submit a top 5 of their favourite songs. If you submitted one song yourself, you may not to vote for that song, however, if you did not submit a song, you are allowed to vote for the song from your own country, as long as you promise to vote honestly. :) Your number 1 will get 10 points, and the other countries in your top 5 will get 7, 5, 3 and 1 points. If two countries have an equal amount of points at the end of the voting process, the country that was chosen as number 1 more often will be ranked higher.

You can vote by filling in the form below. The deadline for submitting your votes is 17 April 2011 at 23:59.

VOTING HAS BEEN MADE INACTIVE.

I am looking forward to receiving all of your votes. :)