And Now We Know...(Day 1)

So as the sun sets over Paris [Only place I could think of where the sun might be setting right now]. But the day has come to an end and having looked at at least 100 photos of Eurovision Taxis as well as hours of rehearsal videos, we now know a lot more about Eurovision 2012. But in a nutshell what have we learned?

• Based on everyone's blog posts we now know it is not very easy to get to Baku, especially if you travel through Istanbul.
• Montenegro is as bad on stage as we first thought, however no one knew quite what to expect all the same.
• Iceland and Romania are the big winners from today, they are now much more favoured to win in the betting odds and reports from Baku about them are impressive.
• Greece has a very typical Eurovision entry. She is not able to sing it well enough live.
• Latvia continues to divide people between lovers who think it is a marginal qualifier and haters who think it is still a very bad song still and she is a good vocalist.
• Albania was as impressive as ever but I think it might be something that the ney sayers have to see live to believe. I really like this though.
• According to my friend the ESCInsider Switzerland far better looking in real life. As a hetrosexual I have no opinion but as they say - know your target market. Their diction as also improved.
• Iris from Belgium has a great pair of lungs. She really came up to the mark in rehearsals today.
• Finally Finland have dropped the dancer which is a great move on their part in my opinion.

Up until now I have avoided making predictions but I think at this stage that Iceland and Romania are the definite qualifiers and Albania is a very likely qualifier. My guess is that there will be one qualifier from either Switzerland, Belgium or Finland and since the rehearsal I am inclined towards Belgium, but that's very difficult to call. I think that Greece is the only other possible contender but if the vocals don't improve it could go the way of Turkey last year.

If you missed our earlier posts they are here:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3