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It's a WRAP! Newcastle v Arsenal meets Eurovision

As proud Swedish exports Victoria and I have maintained a few vital Scandi traditions while  adjusting to the land of Brit. 

One such solid institution was watching, mocking, and eating our way through Eurovision. 

With a serious tab at Scandinavian Kitchen, some Cider and Prinsesstårta.

So what happens? Manchester Utd go and collect the trophy early, the relegation zone has been set and the only real remaining battle takes place in... Newcastle? 

Yes Newcastle. That's the stop before Edinburgh (Scotland) on the train. 

A rather pretty city surrounded by (ridiculously) high bridges. It was also ridiculously rainy and cold when we arrived, yet everyone had dressed for southern Spain on an extra hot day. Odd. 

Anyway, we were expecting Eurovision. It was Saturday. We had time to focus on non-football related things for a few hours so we grabbed chicken wings, extra winter sweaters and headed back to the hotel (it was oddly empty and we were upgraded to a room with a view and almost complimentary mini-bar). 

BBC's commentator said my name wrong repeatedly through the evening. His charming sarcasm and utter wariness of the whole event did prove quite amusing, but seriously. P-E-T-R-A. Not hard. No 'i'. No 'eeeeeeeee'. It's fairly simple really. No?  

Denmark won. We shrugged, pretended to be offended but were really quite happy to have finished in the left column. So the whole spectacle moves 20 minutes across the bridge then... We also discovered very few non-swedes appear to get our slightly dry self deprecating humour. Huh. 

Onto the football. We entered a rainy St James (seriously, the Sports-Direct signs. We get it guys, you bought a stadium, now do something useful and less depressing with your logo that's all over it!). 

I missed most of the 1st half because after running around finalising camera positions and fretting over our boys we had a renewed craving for chicken wings and coffee. 

2nd half made us a bit embarrassed for the players who kept sitting down petulantly and demanding free kicks. No. If the ball hurts you when you jump at it that does not mean crying about it will get you any extra points. 

After some interviews, a clearly de-stressed Wenger, and more coffee we headed home happy to have wrapped 2012/13 and ready to look forward to a few months of weekends. (Yes, the Arsenal fans sang continuously for 3.5 hours. You'd think the booze would tire them out eventually...)

xoxo

'P'

Ladies Euros 2013

The Women's European Championship is hosted in Sweden this year, 10-28th July. 

You'll find the schedule and tickets here and here, including seats at the final from as little as £7 (50SEK) and you can order tickets to follow your team (includes all three group stage games) from ca £25 (225 SEK). 

It's well worth a look, and it's a big one this year as BBC will be airing all the England matches, the semis and the final (at long last). Ratings around Europe for the 2011 World Cup broke records all around and the USA v Japan penalty shoot out Final had Twitter in meltdown, so it's very exciting to see what might be happening over the summer's event. 

I know lads all around will be tutting and commenting on the fact that it's women playing, or how boring or inappropriate or irrelevant this might be. Not only do those comments make you sound like you took the wrong time machine from the 19th century, but it's ignorant and frankly please remember England's men in their 2010 WC if you want to complain about entertainment value or quality football. 

Photo from here.

Show some support to these lovely ladies who kick ass on the field. Tune in, watch it with your daughters and your sons, advertise it at the Pubs...  The game has come an incredibly long way it's beautiful to watch football at this level. Full of heart, talent and boat loads of passion. I can't wait to take a seat at the Friends Arena in Stockholm in July and check out the final, hopefully some of you will join too!

xoxo

'P'

#momentsbypeach