Eurovisionaries: Aistė Smilgevičiūtė

Well, the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest is over, the winner has been chosen, and there's still a week or two before I have my Alaska Eurovision Song Contest party, where we will choose our own personal winner.

So it's time to add a new person to my list of Eurovisionaries:

Aistė  "Strazdas"  Lithuania 1999

Aistė Smilgevičiūtė is a very personal entry in my list of Eurovisionaries.  She is the only singer I've ever voted for in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Although I've lived in the United States for most of my life, I had an opportunity to study abroad for a year, and I went to school at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland.  The last week I was in the country, I was invited to watch the Eurovision Song Contest at a friend's flat, where I ate paella for the first time and watched this amazing show.

First out of the gate was Aistė, singing a song in a Lithuanian dialect called Samogitian about a bird with cold feet.   It's an un-Eurovision song.   But I was in love, and nothing could convince me otherwise.  So I ran out to the phone box (they still existed then) and paid 50 pence to vote for her song.

She didn't do well, she came in 20th place with only 13 points, yet Aistė got me to spend money as a poor college student, then she's definitely a Eurovisionary in my book.