Today was Norway's "Constitution Day", a chance for citizens to be proud and enjoy big parades and festivals, and the Eurovision made it's mark on the festivities as they joined in with the celebrations. Many of the performers and countries' delegations munched and boozed on a champagne breakfast, watched the party outside (along with the all important Royal family) and then finished it off by having some fun at a gathering of flags, balloons and over one thousand children. And to think the Eurovision acts had a tough life!

But, there was work to be done as Belgium, Albania, Malta, Portugal, Greece, FYR Macedonia, Belarus and Iceland took to the stage to practise and rehearse for the main event.

Today, Iceland's Hera Björk performed "Je Ne Sais Quoi", FYR Macedonia's Gjoko Tanevki sang "Jas Ja Imam Silata", 3+2 represented Belarus with "Butterflies", Portugal's Filipa Azevedo delivered "Há Dias Assim", Thea Garrett from Malta shared her song "My Dream", Tom Dice for Belgium was on stage with "Me and My Guitar", Greece with "Opa" by Giorgos Alkaios & Friends and Juliana Pasha from Albania with "It's All About You". Phew! At this point all of the acts from the first Semi-Final have given it a go in the arena. They'll be doing it again on May 24th, only live in front of millions.

Only things weren't so smooth! Thea Garrett was flooded with smoke as her dry ice display turned into cloud, but she kept the act going and gave it her best attempt.

And, whilst speaking of clouds, the Eurovision Song Contest have spoken their advice over the "Ash Cloud" fiasco. As stated, Ireland have already started to make their way over, but there are rumours emerging that other countries may be affected. Sieneke, the Dutch entry may experience difficulties getting to Oslo due to the closer of the country's airports. United Kingdom's Josh Dubovie was also rumoured that he, along with this representatives, might have got caught up by the travel disruption, however it was confirmed that they have contingency measures in place. The Eurovision organisers are informing those coming to the show that they should have back-up travel arrangements, if the big nasty cloud keeps causing trouble and creating mayhem for the airlines of Europe.

Lithuania, Israel, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, Azerbaijan and the Ukraine are scheduled for practise tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see what the talent is like after a review tomorrow evening.