[LMBTO] My First Eurovision Live - Afterwards (13th/14th/15th May)...

I suspect that this is a common sight for those fans whose nation hosts Eurovision - the morning after the night before and Eurovillage is already being broken down.  All those Eurovision posters outlining the years of the Contest and their winners were gone - the stands for merchandise were being dismantled, all of the food and drink vans long driven off into the night.  I suspect that later in the day that all of the sponsors merchandise and promotional vehicles would have gone too.  All that was left of Eurovision as of Sunday 13th May was some of these banners on the security barriers:
If I had lived in Lisbon, I'd have got a pair of scissors, clipped the cable ties and taken one of these home!  Unfortunately the size would have been prohibitively expensive to post it back to the UK, so a picture was the best that could be done.  Realistically Eurovision 2018 was over at midnight the night before and Lisboa was now starting to return to being the capital of Portugal and a major tourist hub, a place for people to visit from around the world without the added benefit of a worldwide music event.  Ellen and I had decided long before the Contest that we would stay in Lisbon until Monday 14th, thereby avoiding the crush of 90% of the fans there at Lisbon Airport on the Sunday.  What other touristy things did we do in the meantime?  To be honest, we had done one of the major things on the morning/afternoon of the Final:
A really impressive attraction - admittedly most Oceanariums are much like one another but as you could see, this one also had birds in the relative sections (Antarctic for instance) plus otters, which was an attraction for Ellen and another pair of fans that I knew, Jamie and Glyn, who were there on the Monday (we returned there to buy some gifts and have lunch before heading to the airport ourselves).  Well worth the visit with its massive central tank around which all the other exhibits were positioned and two floors to view - anyone going to Lisbon should go, especially if you have children (rather than if you are 'big kids').

The reason that we were at Eurovillage again on the Sunday was to go on a River tour - seeing the Square from a different viewpoint was an interesting one, as was looking at both sides of the Tagus and glimpsing all of the touristy things that we didn't have time to go and see (or couldn't see due to Ellen's mobility issues):
It was a nice way to finish off our trip to Lisbon - I even got to see Eusebio nearby:
And so Monday 14th May came - our flight wasn't until 6.45pm, hence why we were able to return to the Oceanarium briefly.  Gate N42A was our passage out of Portugal, along with James from escSocial and Monty from OnEurope:
We eventually made it back home to Bristol at 1am on Tuesday 15th May after an enforced detour off the M4 at Reading, via Newbury.  After retrieving our cats from the cattery that morning, normality returned to our household about lunchtime that day although there was a nice bonus that arrived in the post too:



Eurovision 2018 will always be my first time and after chatting to other fans, I now realise it will be like another first time scenario in everyone's life...


Going to my first Eurovision purely as a fan, no commitments bar having to be at each evening show at the right time, was the best thing I could have done.  It made it easier not being a news website in that I don't have to report on anything or write instant reviews - it also meant that I can just swap to social media to flag up what I was doing there and then.  It is a big difference to what had happened on my blog in the past during the Eurovision fortnight, what with writing about each day as quickly as possible.  For a change, nothing untoward happened on the Friday or Saturday of the Final in my personal life, as it has done in previous years, so I was able to be fully fit for every single day that I was there. 


Looking at what those who do end up in the Press Centre have to do and the hours that they spend there, I am not yet convinced that it is worth flying out to a country just to spend two weeks under a roof working hard and producing the same output of almost every single other news outlet.  I will have to consider if there is much point to that or whether I want to have some tourist time too - suppose it would depend on whether I consider 'getting accreditation' as being something that I must experience...
In summary, my time in Lisbon at Eurovision can be broken down as follows:

• Lisbon itself - it was wonderful, everyone was so helpful, the city that I saw was marvellous, great tourist locations to visit and a superb variety and standard of cuisine.  Getting around was so easy when we worked out how convenient and inexpensive the taxis were, as was needed for Ellen's mobility issues;
• The Eurovision venue - I have nothing to compare with so it is of course the best ever!  Baring the overly officious security which was regrettably necessary after the music-related atrocities over the past two years, everything else about the Contest was brilliant, from the concessions and merchandise stands at the Arena which, as long as you timed it right, were accessible relatively quickly, to the staff that helped you find where you needed to be.  The Altice Arena was superb for acoustics and was well designed as far as the artists on stage and the fans were able to interact with each other.  It became immediately obvious during my backstage tour that this was why it was selected for the Contest;
• The Fans - in particular the interaction with other fans that I had never ever met before and started talking to as though I'd known them for years.  It was amazing to have people shout my name and start talking to me because of this blog or due to our friendship on Facebook.  I also got to meet some of the artists I have chatted with over the rest of the season, as we got to the 'sharp end' of the 2018 run;
• The Contest - I cannot fault the entertainment that I received over the six nights that I was at the venue and it was a real buzz to see and hear all acts at least twice.  I got the live experience I wanted and I was able to be at every evening show, which was my intention from when I decided to go to Lisbon in mid August last year.  The fact that I had had such an amazing build up on the way during the 2018 season and met so many interesting people too meant that being in Lisbon topped off such an memorable Eurovision season.