Melodifestivalen - the ridiculousness continues

When everyone in the US is getting hyped up for Superbowl Sunday, the Ferland household was getting psyched for Melodifestivalen Saturday.  Last year we discovered the hilarity that is Melodifestivalen (pronounced, Melody-festi-vaaahhlen) and wrote a funny (I think) article about it here and the results of the 2012 winners here.

It's a Swedish guilty pleasure and we LOVE it!  It's that odd time of the year when the fun winter holidays are over and the nice spring weather hasn't shown up yet.  The musical acts range from disgustingly bubble gum pop to weird brooding-slam poetry type songs.  There are some good acts but Jon and I are always disappointed when they don't make it through to the next round.  Think of it like American Idol where people watch for the good acts as much as they watch it for the disaster performances. Either way, no one can argue that it's pure entertainment.  The hostess seems to wear a different outfit every time the camera comes back to her and her sidekick, this year it's last year's runner-up, Danny, is the perfect Ken-doll with a microphone.

2013 Melodifestivalen Hosts

Melodifestivalen cheat sheet:

• Each act has to sing the same song, wear the same outfit, perform the same dance, etc throughout the competition
• The winning act goes on to compete in Eurovision with the same act
• 4 weeks of regular competition where the public votes (via SMS) for the top 2 acts each week
• 1 week is a "last chance"/wildcard round where the 2 runners-up from each week get another chance to make it to the Finals

Since you probably will not search YouTube for the entire episode, I've broken Round 1 down for you so you can follow along with the rest of Sweden.

Melodi 1: David Lindgren singing Skyline
Bold Move: Ripping off Danny's song "Amazing" but singing it with better proficiency.
As Jon said, "Just build a better mousetrap."

Melodi 2: Cookies n Beans singing Burning Flags -- basically they are the Dixie Chicks, just with less talent, fame and stage presence.
Bold Move: Having a gross band name.

Melodi 3: Jay-Jay Johanson singing Paris -- go back to France, this was boring
Bold Move: None

Melodi 4: Mary N'Diyae singing Gosa -- happily upbeat but I had no idea what she was singing until I googled "Gosa" and it translated into "cuddle."  I can get behind a song that tells me to cuddle. Fun times.
Bold Move: Employing unattractive back-up dancers.

Melodi 5: Eric Gadd/Eddie Izzard singing something I can't remember in Swedish -- all I know is Eddie Izzard is hilarious.
Bold Move: Telling the audience, "I'm going to rock your soul!" and then hitting the stage with a chill lounge lizard number.

Melodi 6: YOHIO singing Heartbreak Hotel - YOHIO is a cross between Avril Lavinge and the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo only he is a boy.  Apparently he is a huge superstar in Japan and is now after the Swedish market.
Bold Move: Showing the broken heart glove to the audience/camera no less than 30 times in 2 minutes.

Melodi 7: Anna Järvinen singing a lullaby in a housecoat and pajama bottoms
Bold Move: Not falling asleep to her own song.




Melodi 8: Michael Feiner and Caisa -- two words, "SAX APPEAL!"  They would have benefitted from less of her singing and more of his awesome sax playing.
Bold Move: Not singing fully in either English or Swedish -- at times I forgot what language I was hearing since I couldn't make out any of the words.  (...it was in English)

The most entertaining, however, was Danny Saucedo stealing the attention by showing off his hairless chest and a weird S&M outfit with a spikey codpiece.  I would say that Americans would be "above" this type of entertainment/humiliation but since the Kardashians still have a reality show, nobody can make that argument.

Danny took on multiple personas during the show...

Frank Sinatra Danny

Forward-fashion Danny

Half-naked Danny (his best look really)

Brave, bold S&M Danny

So, who made it onto the next round?  The Danny rip-off guy, David and he-she YOHIO.  Gosa-girl didn't even make it to the second-chance round even though we texted in our votes.

Summer Solstice vs. Winter Solstice – WHO YA GOT????

July

December 

vs

As we’ve mentioned, folks out here are much more aware of the seasons and of nature than we were used to from the States.  Now that we’ve experienced both, I figured it was a good time to figure out which one was better.  In the spirit of the NFL playoffs, I decided to break it down “game preview style” (bill simmons style, basically)

In case you aren’t familiar, up here in the northlands, the sun is a fickle mistress. In the summer, the sun rises at 3:31 and “sets” at 10:08pm (18h, 37m and 12s). Compare this to the winter, when the sun is only “up” from 8:44 to 2:48 – 6h, 4m and 44s.  And yes, “sets” and “up” are in quotations because neither one actually happens….

Now that you are familiar, on to the breakdown!

Preseason Expectations –   If you asked me a year ago, this would have been easy.  I was SUPER hyped for constant sunlight and thought that I would go into a severe depression in December.  We had a bunch of friends visit us in the summertime, but shockingly, not too many folks asked about our availability in the dead of winter.

Advantage - SUMMER

General Mood – The biggest holiday of the year here is the summer solstice in mid-June. It’s like 4^th of July at home, except WAY more pagan – which is a good thing.  Everyone goes to their summer homes, grills out, takes their boats on the archipelago and drinks “snaps”.  Also, month long vacation starts in July, so everyone is in a pretty good mood.

The winter solstice would be super depressing if it wasn’t for Christmas (tangential rumor I heard is that this why the Church made Christmas right around Solstice – so that it would be a new beginning and the world came out of darkness).  Luckily, Christmas here is really great, so for the last month with the most darkness, people are distracted by all the pretty lights and good cheer.

This year we got lucky and it was already snowing a lot by Solstice, which made it a lot brighter.  If that wasn’t there though, it would have been REALLY dark and depressing. 

Due to the Christmas season, I am tempted to make this a draw – but Swedes become pretty reserved during this season, so I’m going to go with:

Advantage - SUMMER

Day-After Feeling – This might be the easiest one.  One June 22^nd this year, I could almost feel the darkness enveloping me.  I knew it was going to get darker, and darker, and darker each day.  Really killed my “snaps” buzz. 

On the flip side, on Dec 22, I felt like it was noticeably brighter and that we had weathered the worst of the year.  Also, it was basically Christmas.

Advantage - WINTER

Sleep Schedule – Luckily Calvin is a great sleeper, because I was really nervous that he wouldn’t be able to sleep at all in constant daylight.  And it was really weird putting him down to sleep when we had 3+ hours of BRIGHT sunlight left in the day.  He did generally get up earlier than normal – 5 o’clock hour almost every day of my July vacation, rather than the normal 630-7ish. Lis had to resort to eyeshades at night, and we both became basically sleep-deprived a bit.

Winter is obviously fantastic for sleeping – you don’t need to worry about the sun waking you up for a solid 3-4 months.  So that’s a big win….

Advantage - WINTER

Uniqueness / Weirdness – The darkness is tough because it is so short, but it’s not THAT much shorter than what we dealt with growing up in the northeast. 

The summer though is NUTS.  It is completely odd to have it be twilight-ish coming back from the bars at 2am, or to have the sun wake you up at 5.  Definitely the more unique of the solstices.

Advantage - SUMMER

Tools Needed to Adapt –

Summer – Night shades (making me feel like a pampered, rich elderly lady,  blackout curtains (sold in stores and do their best to block out the sun)

Winter – stars to put in your window (“Christmas” tradition that we are keeping up year round), candles (placed outside doors of stores or homes to welcome you inside), self tanning bulbs (we don’t have these, but lis does have a valentines gift coming up soon), vitamin D supplements (for Calvin, but if we siphon off a bit that’s not a bad thing right?)

Advantage – WINTER (Calvin LOOOOVES the star and would be upset if it lost)

Drinking Ability – This is the most difficult area to score.

On one hand, everyone knows that “day drinking” is always the best kind of party.  It’s usually done at a ballgame, tailgate, beach, bbq, etc.  Always a great time.  During summer solstice though, it’s 24 hr day drinking time!  As I alluded to before, even if you are walking your way back home in the late night / early morning (I did this once, but it makes me feel tough to keep bringing it up), its still daylight.  Your energy to keep rockin’ out is unmatched. 

On the flip side, having 20hrs of darkness means that you can ACTUALLY drink during the day and not feel like a degenerate.  Get home on Saturday and get the party started, it’s pitch black out! Granted, its 3pm, but STILL – it’s dark out.  Also, Lis and I had dinner reservations at 5pm one night when the Dwyers were in town to babysit.  Because it had been dark for 2 hours already, it didn’t even feel like it was “too early” for us to sit down.  So that’s nice.

Basically, this comes down to whether is more fun to party in the sunlight, or party during the day.  Not a distinction I’ve ever had to make before, but in this case, I have to go with…

Advantage:  SUMMER

Overall Winner -  So there you have it – by a score of 4-3, (based on my drinking preference evidently), the best solstice of the year is found in the SUMMER

Congratulations to the winning solstice, they truly deserve their victory.

Now to get ready for the Patriot and Falcons games this weekend!!!

Snow-pocalypse

 Last year we had a CRAZY snowstorm in Atlanta (might have been two years ago).  There was ½ an inch of snow, and the city legitimately shut down for a week.  Because it was the first snow in a decade, they obviously didn’t have any plows, and then everything froze, and southerners can’t drive if it rains, so you can only imagine what snow/ice can do, and so on and so forth – it was nuts.

That was my last experience with a debilitating snowstorm, and I was looking forward to seeing how in-stride Stockholm would handle their snow.  When we moved here in January, there was a bunch of snow on the ground and it didn’t really affect anything.  I figured that Stockholm had a solid snow plan and didn’t really worry about the weather.

Well, as Mike Tyson used to say, “everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth”.  And evidently, the storm we had last week was the weather equivalent of getting a tyson-style uppercut.

Passport Update: Can I find a Danish in København?

No really, there must be a danish somewhere! My only goal on our trip to Copenhagen was to find a really delicious danish and a good cup of coffee.  Fortunately, we found even more than delicious danishes and strong coffee!  Also, I (re)discovered that Danes call Copenhagen, København.  I remember in Spanish class that the US is Estados Unidos but it always surprises me when we constantly translate a city or country into our own language. Why can't we just call it by the same name?  Personally, I like saying København (pronounced like this) much more than Copenhagen ("Copenhaaaagen").  Anyway, I digress.

delicious danishes and coffee -- yum!

Jon, Calvin and I met up with our friends, Samantha and Kyle, in Copenhagen.  They were halfway through their tour of Europe and were open to meeting us in Denmark and traveling back with us to Stockholm.  It worked out perfectly because