It’s Saturday, which typically means over-buying vegetables at the market and over-stuffing myself on dried mango, usually to my regret.  The market has been steadily busier the last couple of weeks and I have fun seeing things like how much nicer the strawberries are now than last week.   I’m waiting for blueberries, though, so I can muffinize them.  Totally wish I had a freezer bigger than an ice tray so I could make dozens when the time comes.

But tonight is different from most Saturdays, because tonight is the Eurovision Song Contest, an event I have been ignorant of until just this week.  This is a bit telling of how much european culture makes its way to the states sometimes - the Song Contest has run every year since 1956.  

The brits already know how this works.  For everyone else, it’s basically like American Idol, kind of.   Every country in the EU does some legwork and eventually submits a song to represent their country in the contest.  The songs are performed and broadcast from a single location, and then people call in to vote on a winner.  The country that wins hosts it the next year.

It sounds lovely, right?  Except that I get the impression that nobody really takes it seriously, and nobody likes to win because it’s expensive to host it.    A friend of mine who lives in Scotland sent me a link to this crazy submission from Serbia.  I mean, a whole night of this glorious songfest tonight!  Living in europe is fun sometimes.