Hah! I thought this might happen. Back when I was fulminating at the YuGov for the incredibly convoluted game of "Who's Got the Eurovision tickets?" I said (in this post):

So as I am now, finally, convinced that the entire nation is on a schedule that resembles the studying-for-finals schedule of your typical college student, I refuse to get taken again. Even though I seem to hear more bad news about Eurovision each day [in addition to the stuff I've already heard], I will not be taken by surprise again if Ukraine manages to host the event without embarrassing itself.

And sure enough, it's happened again. Eurovision seems to be going along swimmingly. Among other things this good article in the Guardian says that everything is teched-out and spiffy in the hastily refurbished Sports Palace (The writer also joked about how nobody is asking any tough questions about Belarus, and Greenjolly's participation annoyed the Eurovision planning commissioner, but how everyone else was having fun.)

They had a great free Ruslana concert and fireworks show the first day (May 18) that apparently was a hit. All our friends that watched (we were socked in with the flu) said the fireworks were even better than New Year's (which was quite a display, see my pictures). They got a firework up that blasted out that Eurovision heart-shape thing, even. Really dynamite.

So Ukraine has pulled off another one. I could really have wished for a little less panicked running around at the last minute, but at the very least it will not be the embarrassment we'd feared.

Welcome to Kyiv, all you Eurovision fans!

Just Desserts

And for those of us who love watching people eat there just desserts, there is an epilogue to the story. I remember hearing about the big hotels in Kyiv greedily tripling their prices for Eurovision, then having "no vacancies" while they held out longer to see if they could get a few more guests.

Well, the jerks have overestimated the willingness of Europeans to plan things at the last minute. Apparently, despite catering mostly to foreigners, these hotels have forgotten that Western Europe and other developed countries like planning in advance, something that hasn't quite caught on here.

So for the last week before the event, six hotels a day were calling Lesya's small tour business alone. A couple of non-risk averse teenagers flew here from Britain with nothing. They showed up and got tickets to both the semifinals and finals from Lesya's company, and got hotel rooms for significantly less than the highest asking price.

Serves those hotels right, the jerks. I hope all the ones trying to bilk the tourists lost money and get pilloried.