A Boredpanda.com poll of Europeans asked, "Which European country has the most attractive citizens?"
As the above map on the tweet above shows, Sweden won in a landslide, with almost four times as many votes as second-place France, with Spain third and Norway fourth. Yes, seeing is believing! But trust me, Norway is a very, very competitive fourth! Even the armed female Customs officers at Oslo Airport Gardermoen are very, very attractive, which at 6:45 a.m., in the middle of January, after a LONG overnight flight from Newark, was not something I was expecting. But adapt I did! I really like the Oslo Airport, too, since it's very clean and tidy, and if you didn't know any better, you would think it opened last year.
Remember, too, as I've written about here previously, four months from now,low-fare carrier NorwegianAirlines starts non-stop flights from Fort Lauderdale to Oslo on November 30th. With flights to Stockholm and Copenhagen days later.
No more need for pointless flights first to Newark, Chicago, Detroit or Dulles just to fly to Scandinavia.
APRIL 20, 2013
Scandinavian Delight! Starting November 30th, fly nonstop cheaply between Ft Lauderdale and Oslo or Copenhagen on Norwegian.com, and starting December 1st, fly from FLL to Stockholm Arlanda; @Oslo, @norway, @stockholm, @sweden, @copenhagen, @denmark
Tourism game-changer for South Florida travelers & Fort Lauderdale-area businesses -but only if they're smart and start planning now. Ruminations on the upcoming Norwegian.com flights b/w Ft. Lauderdale and Oslo, Stockholm & Copenhagen, and the need for Broward's hospitality industry to take full-advantage of the opportunity; @Oslo, @norway, @stockholm, @sweden, @copenhagen, @denmark
Eurovision Song Contest finals are tonight in Mälmo, the Christmas Morning of Europop! Anticipation is in the air and the smart money says that the title will be a battle between Norway's Margaret Berger and Demark's Emmelie De Forest; Anouk's 'Birds' has a powerful ending; #Eurovision2013
Margaret will be singing her ballad ‘I Feed You My Love’ while I'm feeding myself some cheddar-flavored popcorn and watching the show LIVE from Sweden around 3 p.m. Miami time on my desktop, via SVT Play, wondering if anyone will pull an upset. http://www.svtplay.se/ Who wants to be a star? (Som vill vara en stjärna?)
We'll know in a few hours.
Video: All the Scandinavian nations are represented in the finals: Iceland, Norway, Senmark, Sweden and Finland. Above, left-to-right: Denmark's Emmelie De Forest, Sweden's Robin Stjernberg and Norway's Margaret Berger. Article: Vilken fest – Nordiska superfemman i final, Träffa de nordiska artisterna – som alla gör upp om segern i lördagens final av Eurovision Song Contest 2013.
(What a party - Nordic super fifth in final, Meet the Nordic artists - all of which makes up the victory in Saturday's final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2013)
17 May 2013 19:49; Reporter: Mirja Bokholm Backstage look at a rehearsal, as it happens, Margaret's.
SVT video: Denmark's entry, twenty-year old Emmelie De Forest was the fans' and critics' pre-competition favorite and sings the very catchy tune, "Only Teardrops."
Sweden's entry is 22-year old Robin Stjernberg singing "You," as seen here at the 2013 Melodifestivalen in Stockholm in March.
Not that it seems to have much of a chance to win, but one song I wanted to bring to your attention is a song sung by 38-year old Anouk Teeuwe -a.k.a. Anouk- from The Netherlands, called simply enough, 'Birds.' The lyrics are okay, though I'm really NOT so crazy about the phrasing, but I just love the music and the orchestration! The last minute of this song is sweeping and awesome! THIS is what an adult female singer who knows what she's doing sounds like, not some dopey twenty-something who wants to be a carbon copy of any of a dozen iconic female singers we can all think of and name who are so copied to death, with the same mannerisms -and desire to hit high notes for no reason other than to show off- that it's positively draining the life and originality out of popular music in the U.S. and why so much of today's pop music is SO awful and dull. And why so many so-called stars of today can't sing LIVE, only lip-sync and we can all name THEM!
MrHaagsesjonny1 YouTube Channel video: Anouk singing 'BIRDS' (The Netherlands]- From first Semifinal heat of 2013 Eurovision Song Contest, Malmö, Sweden. Uploaded May 14, 2013. http://youtu.be/jAe9b-9xA7c I selected this particular video since it shows the lyrics. Starting at 2:05 thru the end, this song is wow!
This song makes me think of a really memorable song from a good 1970's film that comes up when a female character is thinking long-and-hard about what she will do to change the course of what's been happening thus far. That, or a song you'd hear in a Broadway show where you wish the whole play was as good as that one song that you are humming the next day at work
Of course, that's the oldest story on Broadway -a musical with one good song or one good act in search of others!
I wish I was smart enough to know how to describe it here on the blog in the precise and cogent musical terms and phrases I need to make myself understood, but the first time I heard the last minute of this song, and every time since, it immediately made me think of parts of the orchestration for the version of Cole Porter's "Night & Day" as played in the fictionalized 1946 film of the same name with Cary Grant playing the life of the Hoosier-born Porter, one of my all-time favorite bio-pics, even with some of the artifice. That orchestration is like honey to me, so whenever that's playing on TCM, no matter how many dozens of times I've seen it, I can't help myself and watch it again. Always.
History Channel Previews YouTube Channel video: Vikings Finale Image Spot. Uploaded April 22, 2013. http://youtu.be/MIM25J3XbvE Uh-oh, somebody is heading to Götaland (Sweden) tonight!
I love how quiet the Great Hall is at night ...*sips her mead — Siggy Haraldson (@LadySiggy) April 28, 2013
If it's true that Old Spirits "beseech us to intercede with Odin on their behalf," and it is, is it to watch over Ragnar Lothbrok and to be wary of new alliances? Yes, watch your back. You too, Sweden!
Vikings airs Sundays at 10/9c on the History Channel, @HISTORY history.com/vikings
My last post on Vikings was my blog post of April 6, 2013, titled, Vikings! Fans of @HistoryVikings, Ragnar Lothbrok, Lagertha and Floki celebrate, as do cast & crew, as History Channel renews creator Michael Hirst's drama for second season of 10 more episodes of Norse adventurers in 2014; @KatherynWinnick, @RagnarLothbrok; Jag älskar Lagertha! http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.ca/2013/04/congratulations-fans-of-ragnar-lothbrok.html My last post on Donal Logue, ak.a. King Horik on Vikings, was on March 12, 2013, titled, Odin of Asgard sez: Amusing tweet by actor Donal Logue re TV's version of Miami, no doubt sent while on his couch in LA waiting for his agent to call back with good news about him nailing yet another audition; he's consistently good in everything he plays, and we both LOVE @HistoryVikings -except he's in it, I'm just watching it on TV; #TravisFimmel and @KatherynWinnick are perfect choices to play #RagnarLothbrok and Lagertha; Jag älskar Lagertha! http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/odin-of-asgard-sez-amusing-tweet-by.html Donal Logue interview on CBC'sGeorge Stroumboulopoulos Tonight on April 18th http://www.cbc.ca/strombo/photo-albums/guests/.UXDA4DSRcAQ.twitter
Above, the State of Florida's classic 1970's national TV tourism ad that I've posted on the blog many times before. This spot ad was hugely-popular and successful, especially in the Midwest and East Coast, and was by far THE best tourism TV ad the state has ever produced. To this day, it still makes people smile when they see it or hear that catchy jingle, "When You Need It Bad We've Got It Good."
But in a much-more competitive travel marketplace than existed over thirty years ago, with so many disparate consumer markets, and different ways of reaching out to prospective travelers, it seems to me that we need to see the state come up with something new that's just as compelling as this was. http://www.youtube.com/embed/OxB0kjqO6SI
Today I wanted to follow-up with some specificity on my blog post of this past Saturday, April 20th, which had some great news that some of you readers of the blog might want to take full-advantage of in the near-future -just like me- regarding a game-changing marketing move
A move that will simultaneously make travel to a dynamic part of the world more convenient and cheaper, while also offering local Broward County-area hotels, restaurants and hospitality-related businesses an entrée to an affluent English-speaking tourism market -esp. families- that they have barely even begun to scratch:Scandinavia:
Scandinavian Delight! Starting November 30th, fly nonstop between Ft Lauderdale and Oslo on Norwegian.com for as low as $238, or fly from FLL to Stockholm Arlanda for only $269, plus taxes and luggage charges; @Oslo, @norway, @stockholm, @sweden
A comparable round-trip flight on SAS to Oslo or Stockholm, even in Economy and made weeks in advance, is well over $1,000, as I know from experience in January.
Compare that to whatNorwegian.com will offer starting in late November, with a direct flight to Oslo from FLL.
And coming back this way, with these flights, Broward is now much-cheaper airfare-wise, than flying from Stockholm or Oslo to The Maldives, a very popular vacation spot for Swedish families that's heavily-promoted, along with, of course, Thailand.
The latter is a holiday travel location that many Swedish families have been to so many times before that at least some of their kids are actually blah towards going there again. (Really.)
And since I neglected to mention it in Saturday's post, or so far today, you should know that Norwegian.com is the fastest-growing airline in Europe and has already placed orders for 200 new airplanes.
Here are two photos from my blog of some travel-related advertising I snapped while I in Stockholm in January, and trust me, these display ads are everywhereyou look.
You literally can not escape them.
And that's in part because they work so well.
Especially when it's 17 degrees Fahrenheit and sundown is at 3:45 p.m.
Not surprisingly, this ad was in heavy rotation during morning TV news shows, so much so that I started hearing this jingle in my head by my 3rd day in Stockholm.
As a friend who's a travel professional in Sweden explained to me, since I didn't know myself, flights from Oslo or Stockholm to The Maldives or to FLL are roughly the same time-wise.
But if you compare the costs of airfare using Norwegian.com, NOW flying to FLL from Scandinavia is a ridiculous bargain, by hundreds and hundreds of dollars, and is a bargain that is multiplied by each person who flies here.
After being over there and getting a small sense of how things are done, my own opinion is that the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) needs to really increase their advertising and marketing dollars in Scandinavia and start working on some compelling co-op advertising with Norwegian.comthat they can start running this Fall, before the twice-weekly flights start. http://www.sunny.org/
It seems to me that we need to do this to make sure that the airline's strategy (gamble) works to everyone's satisfaction, and then at some point, they can increase the number of flights or days they fly between FLL and Oslo, whose still-new-looking airport is, in a word, sweet.
Since HB's beach is so woefully unattractive and poorly-maintained, the local postcards that I gave to some business people I met-and the new friends that I made- in Stockholm were entirely of Hollywood Beach and The Broadwalk.
Trust me, people I spoke to there in all sort sof places around Stockholm were very intrigued by what I told them about the area, esp. after hearing them relate some of the daily hassles they deal with when they go to Thailand and other tropical places.
They're looking for new places to visit, so why not our part of the world?
Savvy and enterprising individuals, companies and firms from South Florida to Sweden can now finally reach the affluent, well-informed and influential decision-makers in South Florida and beyond who regularly read Hallandale Beach Blog and its Twitter feed for the facts, nuanced insight and original analysis they can't get elsewhere, and do so via VERY REASONABLE advertising on the blog, at prices starting at just $85 a month. Contact me today for more details at hallandalebeachblog@gmail.com
Above, in the foreground, a Norwegian.com plane alongside one from SAS and Thai Airways on the tarmac at Stockholm Arlanda Airport, around 12:39 p.m. (I told you it was overcast most of my trip!) This particular plane has famed Swedish botanistCarl Linnaeus a.k.a. Carl von Linné, featured on its tail. His face also appears on the 100 Swedish krona note, the smallest bill with a security foil strip. As I have blogged about before here, he's scheduled to be replaced on that bill by gorgeous Greta Garbo'sface. Ah, Garbo! January 10, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. (c) 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved
Meant to post something about this valuable bit of great news a few months ago when I first got the news from someone in-the-know, but it's still worth mentioning all these weeks later now that it was officially made public on Tuesday. And it's a real game-changer, too. Starting November 30th, you can fly nonstop between Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood and Oslo on Norwegian twice a week starting at $238 each way,plus taxes and luggage charges. Norwegian's departures from Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood will be on Mondays and Fridays at 9:30 p.m, arriving in Oslo at 12:35 p.m.the following day.
Departures from Oslo are on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 3:10 p.m., arriving at Ft. Lauderdale at 7:30 p.m. Eastern the same day.
HISTORYPreviews YouTube Channel video: Sneak peek of Season 1, Episode 6: "Burial of the Dead" featuring the one-on-one duel between Ragnar and Earl Haraldson. Uploaded March 21, 2013. http://youtu.be/J1Ehqn19de0
Huge Congrat's to all the cast and crew of #Vikings. It's official..Season 2 here we go!See you all in Ireland! — Katheryn Winnick (@KatherynWinnick) April 5, 2013
Great news! But in a few weeks, there'll be almost a year's wait for new episodes and people will really be jonesing for a Vikings fix. Especially if what star Travis Fimmel says is true about the last four episodes of season one stating Sunday night being the best ones yet.
TheWrap
History Channel Renews 'Vikings' for Season 2
The cable network's first scripted drama series gets a second season renewal
By Jethro Nededog
Published: April 05, 2013 @ 10:53 am
History Channel's push into scripted television has been paying off and earned its first drama series another year.
On Friday, the cable network announced that it's renewing "Vikings" for a 10-episode second season. The renewal arrives just five episodes into the season and four episodes left before its finale on Sunday, April 28 at 10 p.m.
Vikings airs Sundays at 10/9c on the History Channel, @HISTORY history.com/vikings
My last post on Vikings was on March 12, 2013, titled, Odin of Asgard sez: Amusing tweet by actor Donal Logue re TV's version of Miami, no doubt sent while on his couch in LA waiting for his agent to call back with good news about him nailing yet another audition; he's consistently good in everything he plays, and we both LOVE @HistoryVikings -except he's in it, I'm just watching it on TV; #TravisFimmel and @KatherynWinnick are perfect choices to play #RagnarLothbrok and Lagertha; Jag älskar Lagertha!
love this. "Schools in Norway move midterms so students can attend Justin Bieber concert" foxnews.com/entertainment/… — Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) April 3, 2013
re Justin Bieber -Teen Idols and Teenage Girls' Consumer Power and the Backlash: Signs of the coming Pop Culture apocalypse in Oslo: 5 Norwegian schools are rescheduling mid-term exams around Justin Bieber tour dates, and it's okay according to Kristin Halvorsen, the Norwegian Minister of Education and Research. But other politicians are less sanguine about it, and worry what this sort of govt. response will encourage in the future
And the one thing we know from the mountain of evidence is that the students who would otherwise have skipped school are NOT teenage boys! Interesting that the news media is unwilling to state the facts -that the students who will not show up for school are almost exclusively girls, don't you think?
Art Beat blog
New York Times
Schools in Norway Postpone Exams for Bieber Concerts
Another article about the over-the-top situation is this one that ran on Tuesday, that was dominated by one large photo of a teenage fan's bedroom :
Flyttet tentamen for Justin Bieber, Nedtellinga til konsert i Oslo 17. april har begynt. Da får Kristiane Søvik (15) se sitt store forbilde - Justin Bieber.
It's like I'm always saying on these pages -twelve-to-seventeen year old girls in Western countries are taking over the world and won't let go of their grip, and as long as they hold sway, pop culture will cease to be a meaningful measure of merit or talent in the way that it often but not always was in the past. That so much of what teenage girls "Like" music-wise is pre-digested corporate filler product is not a positive sign. Old rule of thumb for the blog and his circle of friends is that if the recording artist's album sale or concert is comprised of more than 90% of one gender, they're not really that talented.
Those girls' fingers on their precious cell phones, whether texting or casting votes dozens and dozens of times for no-talents at home, at school or while walking across the street without looking both ways, are like tentacles around real music talent's throat and creativity. U.S. and Western consumer product companies and their print/TV middlemen are completely afraid to call their bluff, too, which is the worst sign of all. That's closely followed by the U.S. Mainstream Media's general cowardice and unwillingness to push-back against the LCD group think that says giving more news time to what's going on with teenage girls and their myriad fads and obsessions, is, actually helping. In many cases, it's pretty clear that the more the media -hard news and general interest- talks about one of these issues -teen suicide, anorexia, bulemia, teen fashion, teens texting while driving- is actually does more harm than good. But publicly you can't tell teenage girls NO anymore, as per the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas cheerleading scandal here in Broward County, where a mob and a mob mentality made the all-female Broward School Board make decisions not based on facts but on their -yes- feelings. For more on that, see my October 8, 2012 blog post titled, Dynamite! Bob Norman adroitly uses facts and context to lower-the-boom on the Broward School Board for their abysmal handling of the purported Douglas H.S. cheerleader coach 'scandal" -and drops School Board member Katie Leach squarely on her head; One month before the election, docs show Donn Korn opponent Franklin Sands funds his race with lots of money from his stepson’s lobbying firm -shocker!; @mattgutmanABC, http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/dynamite-bob-norman-adroitly-uses-facts.html The firing of Coach Melissa
By Bob Norman, Reporter, bnorman@Local10.com
Published On: Oct 07 2012 10:33:04 AM EDT
Updated On: Oct 08 2012 11:16:26 AM EDT
http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bobnorman/The-firing-of-Coach-Melissa/-/3223354/16884040/-/8enkprz/-/index.html Not giving in to upset teenage girls and their emotionally over-wrought mothers actually resulted in a principal being removed! Principals upset over cheerleading coach's firing 'They're furious. They're absolutely furious over this' Published On: Oct 08 2012 06:30:41 PM EDT Updated On: Oct 09 2012 10:16:48 AM EDT http://www.local10.com/news/Principals-upset-over-cheerleading-coach-s-firing/-/1717324/16903370/-/t6vkfa/-/index.html And you certainly can't say aloud in the media that many of their so-called "problems" actually seem much more psychological in nature, and based on their own self-esteem or lack of it, not something physical, otherwise you're labeled as not being understanding. But if these things were physical, shouldn't there be at least some measurable incidence of bulimic or anorexic activity by girls in countries like Pakistan and Iraq, too? But there aren't any. Why the dissonance? Because these groups all have an incentive to not tell these Western teenage girl consumers the truth -that they can't always get their way. They want to sell them something: a product, a fad, an idea... that will make them like themselves better. So, while consumer product companies and the advertising industry falls all over themselves to get in (and stay in) the good graces of teenage girls -because they'll be making the family buying decisions in the future, so they want to favorably shape those opinions ASAP!- the news media just capitulates rather than stand up for common sense or the truth. And they just can't wait to find out the new trend and fad of upscale teenage American and Western girls and obsessively report on it as if it's something more than it is.
My last post on Justin Bieber was an August 31, 2010 post I titled simply,
Examining a music phenomenon: ABC News Nightline's Chris Connelly interviews pop sensation Justin Bieber: "The Business of Being Bieber"
Odin of Asgard sez: Amusing tweet by actor Donal Logue re TV's version of Miami, no doubt sent while on his couch in LA waiting for his agent to call back with good news about him nailing yet another audition; he's consistently good in everything he plays, and we both LOVE @HistoryVikings -except he's in it, I'm just watching it on TV; #TravisFimmel and @KatherynWinnick are perfect choices to play #RagnarLothbrok and Lagertha; Jag älskar Lagertha!
Judging by CSI: Miami, Dade County is loaded. Must have spent millions on hologram computer monitors and Hummers alone. — donal logue (@donallogue) March 7, 2013
I first became aware of KatherynWinnick on Bravo's "The It Factor" over ten years ago, the first reality show I ever watched and one of the very best, since it'd do well now with new cast as long as you eliminated the drama queens. Somewhere around here I have some videotapes with all the episodes on it, which I brought with me from D.C. for some reason.
Producer and writer Michael Hirst on historical misconceptions about the culture and belief system of The Vikings. New episodes of The Vikings air every Sunday at 10 Eastern/9 Central on The History Channel, DirecTV Channel 269.
vvfilmztv YouTube Channel video: 185 "Vikings"-interview med Gustaf Skarsgård/ Vikings actor Gustaf Skarsgård on his role as Floki in the series, experiences in past films, comparisons to HBO's "Game of Thrones" and film directors he'd like to work with in the future, especially Scandinavian ones. Uploaded March 3, 2013. http://youtu.be/bjbQ-TvsFqQ
Stewie Griffin from "The Family Guy," as seen on Channel 6 in Sweden, where they run the show at night in English with Swedish subtitles. Trust me, Stewie is just as droll and spot-on in his observational humor and mockery in svensk as he is in englesk.
The blog and I are back from wonderful Stockholm! Bloggen och jag är tillbaka från underbara Stockholm!
I will have lots of interesting stories, anecdotes, observations, photos, videos -and some valuable lessons learned- to share with you all over the next two weeks about my trip to Stockholm, "The Capital of Scandinavia," which, while it was cold and snowy while I was there, never getting above 27° F, got noticeably colder just as I was leaving for Arlanda Airport Friday night to return, with me crashing at the airport so I wouldn't miss my SAS flight in the morning. While it's now about 65° F here in Hallandale Beach in the middle of the night, in Stockholm right now, at 10:30 a.m., it's now just under 7° F. Below, the weather forecast from Channel 4 today, Tuesday morning, around 6 a.m. Stockholm time.
You'll recall me writing here before my trip about how early sundown is, on those days when there seems like there really is some sun, which was between 3:15 and 3:30 p.m. But what I may've neglected to mention was how late sunrise comes, too. That's equally brutal this time of the year, and really, really makes you want to stay in bed.
This is what it looked like outside my hotel room window last Thursday morning around 7:30 am., looking down on Torsgatan in the Norrmalm neighborhood of Stockholm. Really.
Now that I'm back and my jet lag and the six-hour time difference in my head has finally (mostly) disappeared since landing in Ft. Lauderdale Saturday night, I'm busy organizing and cataloging everything from my trip, from my random or considered thoughts to my photos to my copious notes about consumer prices, so that everything will be in sync and I don't forget to mention anything I was planning on sharing here, especially those valuable facts and lessons that might prove instructive to some of you in the future who don't presently know much about Sweden or Stockholm at all. There's a lot you don't know -and a lot you think you know that isn't actually true. From this perch of mine over the next two weeks or so, I'll try to re-calibrate the scales a bit, and lean them more to the side of fact-based knowledge over tired, old cliches and gross generalizations from 30-40 years ago, so that those of you who are interested and want to be well-informed, can have the benefit of what I know and have learned the past two weeks from first-hand knowledge and observation while seeing as much as I could in one of the world's greatest and most dynamic cities. While not perfect, it's a place that honestly does have a visceral positive "buzz" about it, and trust me when I tell you, the area's residents there really DO love living there, esp. the folks fortunate enough to live in Södermalm, where I spent half my trip.
