Jungee-Eurovision weekend

This weekend we managed to combine two of our favourite activities from last year; Eurovision and Jungle-themed water parks!

With the Eurovision final being broadcast on a school night our plan was always to download a copy and then watch it the following weekend - and thus maximising party potential. But when we realised that we had already booked in to Jungee for a weekend of sliding and all-inclusive action, we decided to simply shift the location of our Eurovision party to Jungee and use it as an excuse for some fancy dress action too.

So for the last month or so everyone has been watching youtube videos of previous entrants to get ideas of what to wear that either showed a Eurovision or country stereotype, or a previous entrant. There were loads of ideas bandied about and some people settled on an idea quickly, but we took ages to actually decide on our costumes. I had three long trips to the mall, first looking for a white floaty dress (Azerbaijan's winning entry from last year) and then red trousers (Brotherhood of Man, UK's winning entry from the 70's). We even flitted with the idea of getting a costume made (Ghengis Khan, Germany's 1979 entrant, anyone?) but finally settled on Romania's entry for this year when I found a short orange dress and Scotty managed to find white linen trousers and shirt.

Other outfits that featured at the Eurovision screening we had at Jungee included Scooch (brilliant tailored outfits that were perfect!), Bucks Fizz (complete with detatchable skirt for her and detatchable trousers for him!), Ireland (Irish flag dress), UK (Union Jack dress), Englebert Humperdink (specially crafted Engle-burns), Moldova's 2011 entry (pointy hat) and Cicero (Germany's entry from a few years ago...man in silver suit).


It was great fun to watch the show through and we all had 'superfan' score-cards so that we could rate each act on the song, costumes and dance/performance. There were some surprise hits (Love Me Back and their ship!) and some unsurprising groans (EH was terrible!) but a good time was had. We were well in the need of a drink (all-inclusive didn't include room servive or take-away...gggrrrr) by the time we finished watching the acts and so headed out to the Jungee nightclub. It was good fun to parade through Jungee in our outfits and it was only afterwards that I realised how ridiculous I must have looked in public (pregnant lady in tight orange dress up to her knickers is not my usual look!)

Apart from the Eurovision-action of Friday night, the other draw for the weekend of Jungee was the 32 slides and pools that they boast.  We loved them last time and spent hours on the slides (even though I still could not bring myself to do the tsunami or the yellow slide on my own, or open my eyes on the tsunami!) but this time was set to be a little different. I think it took Flossie and Frenchie about 5 minutes after we told them that I was pregnant for them to ask if I was still going to go to Jungee. Of course I'd be going - it's just that I would be eating for two, but Scotty would be sliding for two!

The first day went quite quickly in the end as we all got up late (as Thursday evening turned in to a much bigger night than anyone had planned!) so we only had a few hours poolside before breaking for lunch.  I spent some of the time finishing my book but had a dip in one of the pools and went to watch some sliding too. After lunch it was much the same, but we also managed to fit in a round of crazy golf (the fact that this was not jungle themed was dissapointing to say the least).  On the second (and last - boo hoo!) day we didn't go to the sliding pool in the end, but decided to stay by the pool near our room. It was pretty cold in there, but we braved it for about 20 minutes before heading inside.

What is it with us and nice hotels and important events in Egypt's modern history?  We were visiting reception on our last morning to confirm check-out time and we pass a small group of hotel workers all watching a TV - it is showing the Mubarak trial. We knew that the verdict in the trial was due that day, but were never totally convinced that a) they would announce the verdict that day b) they would announce at promptly, but here we were at 10am and the live footage was telling us otherwise. We were quite tempted to stay and watch with the workers, but we decided that it would be better to watch it in our room where we could get coverage in english and wouldn't be around to see others reactions / be asked our reaction (as we didn't know what the outcome could be and what the politics of these particular workers were). When we got back to our room the result had just been announced and we did spend the next hour following it on and off on the TV and internet.

So all in all a weekend to remember!