this crazy show stuff

It's finally over. This whole Eurovision song (schlager in Swedish) choir show, with star Magnus Carlsson flown in from Sweden, awesome dancers, great band and all of the choir buddies, is finally over.
Boohoo.
Yeah, all of the rehearsals have at times been a pain in the. Yeah, we have all wondered if this was really gonna work out, or we'd be embarrassed for the rest of our Brussels lives. And yeah, at times the rehearsals didn't really sound all that great, or we moved wrong, or one of the dancers knocked the sax player's sheet music down, or we worried about ticket sales and the pretty crappy acoustics of the theater where we were supposed to perform.

But man, this whole thing ROCKED.

Honestly. So. Much. Fun.

We decorated the boring rooms. Foyer: kids' party meets Pride festival.

Stage: Gold, green and black. As glam as we could. Here, btw, are Sofia, Sofia, Agneta and Ulrika performing "Kärleken är"(all pics from Friday's dress rehearsal).

Magnus was awesome. Humble, professional, friendly. Just look at the focused looks of the band (Rafaël, Adriaan and Kris are in the pic. Conny, sax player, missing). They know a pro when they see one.

We put on tons, and I mean tons, of makeup. This is my Carola outfit, loosely inspired by this.

We put on outrageous clothes. Here's Kimmo and Lotta singing "Är det de här du kallar kärlek?"(and looking so much better than the original, I must add!)

And then we put on a show that still, four days later, has us all grinning, and bemoaning its end. We got amazing amounts of positive feed back. We partied 'til way too late. We shared, and still share, the pics on Facebook, and something has happened in the choir, there's a feeling of "us", of having shared a great experience.

Now we only need to form our own self-help group. Schlager Lovers Not-So-Anonymous. Because in the end, the European parliament officials will not look kindly on bureaucrats wearing sequined skirts, and husbands glare accusingly when the humming starts again. And again. And when the dance moves sneak their way in to an ordinary "going to get takeout Chinese food" walk. This needs to stop. But what a ride it was.
Alessandro, we all owe you for the idea. THANK YOU!