Eurovision spirit, Eurovision soul

I am starting to feel it in the air the moment passover is arriving and spring is coming - the energetic atmosphere of Eurovision. The wonderful sensation of knowing that the tension is starting to build up. You've been following the preselections every week, listening to the new songs on your ipod all of those days, loading yourself with ESC excitment. Now all songs are known. And now there are so many joyful things and events ahead: the festive TV broadcast of the songs and their video clips, which is really the opening shot of the official Eurovision month. Then the final bets, the OGAE parties and meetings, everything is about Eurovision and all the fans are a big happy, excited and histerical family.

And then...the event itself. You ordered a flight, arranged an accomodation and then you fly. There, in the host city, you'll meet all of your Eurovision friends. And how joyful this is going to be...you meet then only once a year. but feel like you share with them some part of your soul. You are all celebrating the same great holiday and plan your lives around it, isn't it so? This week is going to be crazy, hazy, glamorous and terrific week of rehearsals, parties, exciting meetings, conversations and picture-taking and mingling with the artists, a big rush that gets bigger ang bigger untill the day of the final, when we all sit somewhere: in the venue, the green room, press room, in a bar watching it on a big screen with beer...it doesn't really matter as long as you've got a good place. We all would hold our breath waiting for the final results. Hoping to see our favorites go high and our home country getting a respectable position. everything happens so fast as we sit fastened to our chair and follow the scoring. And then it's gone before we even notice. The Eurovision Song Contest is over. We know the winner, we know where we''ll all meet next year. God, a whole year to go untill the next time!

And then, a last party. The winning song is repeated again and again and everybody is dancing like mad. Then tearful packing. Taking your laggage to the airport through the city streets that all of a sudden seem a little bit empty and quiet without all this Eurovision atmosphere. A little bit sad. And then your flight home. Later, when you're back in your country and back in your routine of work, you'll feel some emptiness - Post Eurovision Depression, they call it. But it will pass, and you would be able to live your life just like before, knowimg that next year this whole fansastic race will start all over again...

Those are our lives, Eurovision addicts. We all have this Eurovision rush in our blood and an extreme liking for those gleaming things that attract immediately and then are gone in 60 seconds. A Eurovision song that lasts only for one year, before it's stored up there, in the huge attick of past ESC songs. A show that lasts only 3 minutes and then go on living only in Youtube and DVD's. A singer who's a superstar surrounded by fans only for the one week of Eurovision, unless he wins. A fan that is living a boring meaningless life, who gets a refreshing wave of energy as the ESC times are getting closer and suddenly there is so much to do and to arrange. This is what we all are. Temporarity addicts. We are temporary. And we die and reborn. Every year we die in may, but come back to life just in time for the first national preselection...

But now it's happy, shiny Eurovision times. Today, on my way to work, it felt like the first day of spring. The weather was so fine, the sun was shining and made me take off my cardigan, and the wind brought the smell of bloom and freshness. Those sensations always reminds me that a great perioud is coming. Spring brings a lot of good things, and Eurovision is only one of them.

And now for a little souvenir - some pictures from last year's Eurovision in Oslo. I went as a representative of Tapuz - Israel's biggest portal, and my friend Shira came to represent her fashion and styling website. Even only looking at those pictures makes me long so much and miss those wonderful days we spent there, in the streets of great, noble and beautiful Oslo.

Picture codes:

1. The welcoming Eurovision decoration at the airport. 2. The venue - Telenor Arena. We've been visiting it almost every day till if felt like home. 3. A car with the ESC 2010 slogan "Share the moment", that played all times ESC hits in the street. 4. Me with Feminnem, the croatian representatives, at the Croatian party at the embassy. 5. Me with Giorgos, the Greek singer, at the Greek party. 6-7. A little big from the beauty of Norway. It was really breath-taking. 8. Me and the Polish singer, Marcin Marozinski at the opening coctail. 9. Me and Shira at the official opening coctail.10. Me and Shira at the Greek party.

(Pictures taken in Oslo, Norway. Summer 2010)