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Sunday, the 22nd: Exhibition

On Sunday we actually nearly managed to miss the exhibition, since we went to the bus waiting at Perrache train station and got into it without thinking about it, since only the Line A had been leaving there the whole week. When the bus stopped at the official hotel, we noticed that all people were putting suitcases into it, which made us conspicious and so we ended up jumping out of the bus, when after asking we were told that the bus was going to the airport :eek: We ran right into shine_like_stars, who asked us whether we weren't going to the exhibition :shuffle: :lol: I explained that indeed we were, which is why we just fled out of that bus. Since she also was on her way there we went together, of course the real bus to the rink drove away just in front of us, so we ended up walking to the rink, which was really kind of far (shine_like_stars told us that Petrova & Tikhonov always walked from the rink to the hotel, how determined ;) ). I was happy to hear about C&S being in the gala after all. Ok, I would have loved to see Navka & Kostomarov, but when I get C&S instead, I take that deal ;)

Due to the travel problems we arrived only about 30 minutes before the start of the gala, just enough time to takedown our banners and buy something to drink. Walking to our banners, I thought it was strange that Belsornia apparently had taken down her banner for Pippa & Phillip already, but had not taken the one for Galit & Sergei yet. I was :eek: when she told us after the exhibition, after she had went to actually take her banners, that someone must have taken her Pippa & Phillip banner. (I was considering making a banner for Pippa & Phillip one day, but if this is such a risky business I'm not sure about it ;) I'm not going to put all this work in, just to have it stolen after the first event :drama: :lol: ).

The exhibition started with Gwendal giving a speech in French. He talked so slowly, even I understood it!

The first skaters were a very young dance team called Gassoumi & LeMolaire. They skated a cute program to "Rabbi Jacob", which looked like it might be a competitive FD.

Next was a little girl called Tiffany Dube. She was skating to "The Incredibles" and was wearing a "superhero" costume designed just like the ones the characters in the movie were wearing, which I found a really cool idea :)

Pla & Bonheur wore interesting costumes and had an interesting music title("La Puppee psychedelique"), but the program itself was not as interesting as those 2 things made you expect, it was rather generic.

I was very happy C&S were in the exhibition, even if I was going to see their Gypsy Kings medley for like the 27th time :lol: However I can understand that they keep this program, since the crowd always absolutely loves it and I didn't mind seeing it here again, because it was only the 2nd time I saw it live and never from such good seats (I still wish they had used their "Stranger in the House" exhibition more often though, since I think it was equally cool and fun and I think they used it like 3 times). They had a fun performance and Galit looked fine despite the many fast rotational lifts :saint: Skaters are tough! :lol:

I think it's a law of nature that every figure skating exhibition is going to have pretty much all of the following special ingredients: a chair, a cloth or a rope and a mimicked or actual sword fight, a GFB to Celine Dion, ... :P Sarah Meier was in charge of the cloth at this exhibition which made me just sooooo excited, not. I thought Sarah's cloth usage was extraordinarily 'special', since instead of the usual waving it around to then uncaringly throwing it away, she tied it to something outside the boards and then kept enwrapping herself into and out of it again several times, which of course was extremely artistic and fascinating :saint: When she was not tied to the boards, she had some nice spirals and 2 good triple jumps though.

Obertas & Slavnov skated a very entertaining techno folk program, I think the music was from their short-lived techno LP from last year, but the exhibition program was a lot better suited to the music than when they had been using it in a competitive environment. It also made me think of the disco the night before :lol:

Stefka and I were :huh: and :rofl: throughout pretty much all of Dambier's exhibition, which made it hard to actual pay proper attention. Apparently, as we were told later, he was impersonating some French singer in the program, which we of course didn't know, so for us it was just a weird program in which he went from being under a black whole-body-condom to looking like a fat lady in drag, to impersonating Marylin Monroe, to looking like Atze Schröder (German Comedian) to suddenly only wearing underpants. I was relieved he stopped undressing at that point, since there were already enough highly bizarre images burned into my brain at this point of time (probably for the rest of my life). :lol:

Delobel & Schönfelder skated to something dramatic and French that reminded me of their FD from this year or some of their older dramatic FD's.

Carolina skated beautifully and purely to her "Ave Maria" exhibition number. I like the birdy white costume :D

I don't really mind the first half of D&V's Pirates program (I think it gets boring when she changes into the white dress), since it is kind of diverting, the sword fighting is better than A&P's action with light sabers (well not that much this time, cause Povilas kept missing the sword when he was supposed to catch it) and they wear so much costumes they're kind of hidden inside them if you squint your eyes a little :shuffle: So I was amused when Katja and Susanne (who are big D&V fans) told us in the evening that they absolutely can't stand that exhibition, especially the sword fighting part. Typical.

In the break Stefka and I went over to RedSonja, Belsornia and Jenya to chat with them and they told us the very interesting and entertaining story of how they had gotten back to their hotel at the end of the night before (we had lost each other somewhen in the middle of last night, due to uncontrollable circumstances :D ). Plus I was delighted to hear that RedSonja was really impressed with Galit for once :lol: ;) While I was standing behind their seats, some woman behind me pushed me forward into the back of the seat before me, so that I ended up with some fat ugly bruise on the front of my legs, in order to go with the way more mysterious bruises on the back of my legs (somewhen during the week, I noticed that both my lower legs were totally bruised - Stefka observed that it looks 'sick' - in a really wide and weird pattern and I have absolutely no idea how that happened. Later we noticed that Stefka had similar bruises too, just less badly, so I suspect somehow it must have had something to do with the seats :confused: ).

Nadege Bobillier opened the second part of the gala to the obligatory GFB to Celine Dion.

Pechalat & Bourzat skated some jazzy stuff and were sliding around on chairs. I was quite glad I didn't get to see that [b]instead[/b] of C&S.

Petrova & Tikhonov skated to some sort of 'upbeat' version of Ave Maria (which sounds really bad written like that, but it was actually very very nice. I think their exhibitions are always special :)

Brian Joubert skated to some French ballad and came out in a costume that we didn't understand back then (thanks for the explanation in Stefka's thread!)

Sawchenko & Szolkowy skated to "Heya" and I was glad that we got that and not "Belle". Belle was very nice the first time, but it gets old very soon and the other problem with it always was IMO, that S&S often skated so crappily in exhibitions and programs like "Belle" don't work if they aren't performed top-notch. Some silly diversion like "Heya" is a much more safe choice ;)

Elena Sokolova skated the same charming exhibition as at Nebelhorn Trophy. She's just adorable!

Grushina & Goncharov skated their "Adagio" exhibition, much to Stefka's and my delight...

After their skate Gwendal presented the flower girls (I think as a representation for all volunteers that had participated in the Euros). I think that was a vast improvement to the presentation of the volunteers at least years' Euros, where some volunteers had been forced (I suppose, cause nobody would do that voluntarily) to sing some weird song.

Stephane Lambiel was an absolute highlight, he skated a totally beautiful program to James Blunt's "Beautiful". He had an amazing combo spin and the whole program was just wonderful pure skating, without any pretentious stuff or unnecessary flourishes. (and I actually don't even like James Blunt, or at least I'm damn sick of hearing "Beautiful" ).

Totmianina & Marinin skated their Andrea Bocelli program and were unearthily beautiful as always :swoon:

Irina skated a cute upbeat number to "You promised me". Plusheno and Gwendal could be seen dancing to her music backstage :lol:

We had seen on the plan that there would be a "short presentation" about Navka & Kostomarov and I wondered whether it would be similar to Worlds 04 where T&M had been presented and Tatiana Totmianina had so cutely thanked the audience, but Stefka pointed out to me that there isn't really anything Tatiana Navka could thank the audience here for. Which is very true, so maybe instead of cutely saying "Thank you audience", Tatiana could have cutely said "F*** you audience" instead, I know I would have been tempted if I was her :P :saint: However, they just showed a video of their FD and the lift where she had cut her hand and Gwendal explained about it.

Plushenko skated "Sex Bomb", I don't think I have to write anything about that :lol: We were really amazed thought that he landed 2 absolutely stunning picture perfect 3axel in his Sex Bomb costume.

After the exhibition we wanted to go back to the Italian restaurant we had been earlier in the week, but it was closed on Sunday, so we ended up at a Chinese restaurant near our hotel instead and afterwards we all (plus the flowers Plushenko had received during the exhibition :P ) met in Stefka and my hotel room and we watched some more photos.

And then Euros was over :(