A week full of bear meatballs, smoked elk, blood sausage, juniper schnapps and a solitary surprisingly decent veggie tortilla later it was time to escape the Eurovision 2007 hype building to a fever pitch — the semifinals would be held the day after I left, and you couldn’t swing a sequined tutu in central Helsinki without hitting three people, at least one of whom would be a Ukrainian crossdresser, showing off their Eurovision tags.

(Yeah, that’s it. If you want to actually read about Helsinki, you could do worse than check out a previous visit.)