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Iceland celebrates like never before
A hero's welcome for Eurovision runner-up
Yohanna, who put Iceland in the record books on Saturday, arrived on a flight from Copenhagen at around 3pm local time. The celebrations started the second the plane touched ground. Two fire trucks accompanied the plane, shooting huge arches of water over it as it taxied towards the terminal at Keflavík airport.
Yohanna and the rest of team Iceland where greeted by Páll Magnússon (Head of Icelandic television broadcaster RÚV), Katrín Jakobsdóttir (Minister of Education) as well as several fans that had gathered in the waiting area of the airport.
Yohanna was then rushed to Reykjavík, where a massive national celebration was being set up in the city center. Several thousands of people showed up for the event which was hosted by fans favourite Paul Oscar (Iceland 1997), ex-eurovison contestant, eurovision guru and fan.
Paul Oscar played, sung and danced to the music of Iceland's most beloved Eurovision entries through the years. Songs ranged from Icy's 1986 entry Gleðibankinn to Silvia Night's 2006 entry Congratulations and they all recieved a spectacular response from the crowd, who sung back to the songs that have given them so much to be proud of.
It was now time to present the nation's newest sense of pride: Yohanna!
As the Icelandic Eurovision Song Contest singer took the stage, the crowd went wild. She gracefully thanked the people for showing up and to noone's surprise she laid the question on the line just one more time Is it true?.
The performance recieved admirable feedback from the fans in the crowd, many of which sung from the top of their lungs to the ballad that first the Icelandic nation, and this weekend, the rest of Europe has fallen in love with.
Yohanna's stop was only a brief one and she was soon rushed to the RÚV studios where a special show outlining her success was being shot. The 30 minute show which is mostly in Icelandic can be found here:
You can see highlights from the concert here:
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AMAZING!GREAT!NO words to comment such a beautiful entry from Iceland!
I voted for you from Cyprus!!=]]]
I wanted Iceland to win this time, and Malta to be second..
im glad that many people are thrilled for yohanna....for me, my fave song this year....and my 3rd fave eurovision song EVER!
been in love with this song since the very first listen.
good luck to yohanna ona successful future
@James S
I find that too, Iceland is probably the first country in a long time to get some success without half naked dancers and way to many pyros.
Pyros are great if they fit the song, they rarely do in ESC.
SHE DESERVED 1 PLACE ! LOVE FROM GREECE
Awesome Yohanna!!!!!! You are the winner!
Well done Iceland - for me this was the best song of the contest and probably the best eurovision entry for some years. To think Iceland can achieve this with such a small population and the current turmoil is amazing. Thank you Iceland for giving a great song that didn't need fireworks or circus acts - simply a brilliant song performed brilliantly.
Also I am so pleased that we here in Ireland finally awarded douze points to our northerly neighbours!
Respect Yohanna
It's perfect!
Many former Icelandic entries we could hear...
Yohanna and Iceland deserved it, and even more.
I voted for her! She was my second favorite.
yohanna was amazing...i have never loved so much a eurovision artist...she was unbelievable....amazing ballad,so sensitive and amazing voice without trying to impress like jade....
loved her! voted for iceland 5 times 
@ Kare ,I know ,just let me have my wee moan.Heavens peeps moaned about televoting last year when their songs didn't get the place they thought they deserved,this year they moan that it's the jury vote that caused it.Just because we do it doesn't mean we can't reflect and see change and see that choices we have made might not be the right choice.
paul c
Keep us informed, please
(in fact, there's no such thing as harsher )
DAVID PERHAM
Excluding televoting would be the same as admiting that people have no voice. And that does not go in line with today's political and scientific reasoning.
Well don Yohanna ,You were the winner (along with Jade),in my book.The best performance(as well as Jade ) on the night.Again people can we stop banging on about not liking Juries.I presume all of you are under 20 so can't really remember a time before the terrible televoting.Juries go for a song not a performance and as it is a SONG contest in my book that is ok .Besides Jury was only 50% of vote ,as myself and many others keep saying.I would still like whole juries again as I hate anything with a televote too many unqualified people thinking they have a right to judge what they are not qualified to judge(Britains Got Talent,X-Factor and the rest)
@kare kano
I'm sure the "harshest" reactions will come later this evening from the private channels and their satirical shows, NOTHING from TVE of course, not even an apology, but the other channels will surely take advantage of it, anyway that's the essence of TVE : "no comment", but wil sure get some comments from myself when I visit next week LOL (but I'm doing a report about drug-dealing not Eurovision, unfortunately, although I will try to do one I hope!)
paul c
I was expecting a harsher reaction from Spanish media, as Soraya as been tipped to win ESC.
@Kare Kano
same as usual, like an ostrich, with head buried in the sand, apart from private channel La Sexta (which sent Chiki last year) which is milking the situation for every last drop! (TVE didn't even mention it yesterday at all!...pathetic!
Sarytale is the greates name 
- and person 
paul c
Sorry for asking but...
... how's Spain really reacting regardins the ESC outcome?
A deserved second place
At least most of us seem to agree about it
@sarytale
well, I'd responded on the Alexander arrival thread and was deleted so I sent a comment for explanation there..see u on that thread!, btw, next week I'm going to TVE studio (here in Barcelona in Sant Cugat, for a report, so will get some comments about Spain etc..will keep you posted!)
CONGRATULATIONS JOHANNA AND ICELAND FOR THE GREAT SUCCESS...JOHANNA,YOU DESERVED TO BE A WINNER OF THE EUROVISION 2009.CONGRATULATIONS AGAIN.
paul c:
Hehe..I just meant it was a bit funny that you called me Sarytale since Eurovizz is the only one doing that. 
I really appreciate it, so thank you for what you said about my well-expressed defense (especially from a journalist point of view..hehe) I don't know why some of my comments always get deleted when other people writes about non-topic things all the time. Maybe they don't like me...hehe.
Anyway...I see they have made an article for Alexanders arrival also now... hurray!
Marko:
I don't think she made a video of "Hold on be strong". I just think they used her performance from the final. Let me check it out...
And again, well done Johanna 
@sara y tale
I got Spanish "y" =and in it too
well you deserve it after your always well-expressed defense, I myself am a freelance journalist so I know and appreciate the meaning of "balanced coments", I try to defend my own position if I can, but accept always others' points of view..that said my comment re: Alexander's success on another thread has just been deleted and really I don't understand why? I am going to write back to ESCtoday now about it..
Congratulations to Alexander! He deserved the first place.
But there is a strange situation in Ukraine. According to ESC results Ukraine gave 8 points to Prihodko but the president of NTKU (national Ukrainian TV company) declared that the Ukrainian jury gave 0 points to Russia and unprofessional jury – not much more than that. An official letter was sent to EBU.
FALSIFICATION OF ESC RESULTS?
A M A Z I N G !!!!!!
Last night Iceland 'Partied Like It's 1999!'
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