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This is a gonna be a totally fanboy-ish and intelligence-devoid post, but I've spent the better part of the day without achieving much as I'm too caught up with the American Idol finale results show this morning.

*spoiler alert* In case you were living in a rock or planning to avoid all newspapers/radio and catch the show this weekend.

I was ecstatic that my favourite pick, Kris Allen won. Oh sure, he can likely never outsing Adam Lambert on flu day, but I liked his laid back manner and ability to connect emotionally to a song and convey it. Adam's octave range could probably give Mariah Carey a run for her money, but it always seems as if he's just showing off and putting on a show rather than just conveying a song.. Each performance, he'll have some tripped up lights, smoky effects, costume etc. While visually creative, it detracts me from enjoying the authenticity of a song. And oh, I don't like the tone of his voice too - too wavery, and for some reason he sounds really feminine to me.

So anyway, in the grand design of the cosmos, this is probably totally insignificant - the world economy is still tanking, I still have a proposal attachment to finish up, and a stupid brainwashing camp to attend. But this totally made my day.

ETA: Check out the new single from Kris Allen - the customary 'coronation song'. I usually think this songs are cheesy/sappy, but surprisingly this one is quite alright.
Disclaimer: Possible earworm. Shall not be held responsible for random hummings, or stuck melody in mind.

La fotos, episidio una

Ok, I lied. I got over jetlag a day after I got back, but procrastination and laziness got in the way. So anyway, there's a quite a few photos so I'm splitting them up two posts, in a sorta-chronological order in between my rambling narratives.

This was my first time venturing out for such a distance on my own, and not surpisingly, my parents were worried sick. But things pretty much went well. As the plane was arriving in the Frankfurt airport (around 6.15 am there), I was caught off-guard by the pilot's announcement that the local temperature was 8 degrees! Yikes. Landed on the erm, open landing (?) area, which was noticably windy and cold, before a bus took us to the airport. Inside the temperature is bit more tolerable.

It was a 6-hour transit, and man was things expensive there. A bottle of mineral water (500 ml) was around 2-3 euros (1 euro = RM4.8)! On the plus sight, coffee's widely available and cheaper there, relative to mineral water of course. So anyways, with my jakun-ness and all, I walked around the airport and took some pics. If you look real close at this departure information display, you can make out my flight - (Orange box), LH 4454 Barcelona.





No matter where you go in the world, you can always look forward to a warm, comfortable cup of coffee. A grande Caramel Macchiato here is 4 euros.



Cool to see some green steps taken by the airport. All the waste bins are like this:



Lots of shops there selling different kinds of shops - including this one which I'm not entirely sure but I think Fea and Alia would probably go ga-ga over:



Somehow, I find it amusing that travellers will just pop in and decide to buy an extremely (overpriced) crystals as they are about to board the plane:



Arrived in Barcelona airport around 1 pm. Took a cab to the hostel - La Residencia Campus del Mar. About 30 minutes ride, and the fare came up to 25 euros! (Double yikes). The rooms are really nice though, if a bit pricey:



Outside view of the hostel:



The hostel is actually within a residential neighbourhood, which is sandwiched between a large (assumably corporate) building and a park. It's also less than 10 minutes of walking distance away from the research institute where I would be heading to. It was really cool to walk around, as the weather there is really chilly, I'd say around 10 degrees in the morning, and bout 15 degrees later in the day. The daytime hours seemed to stretch longer too - 6.30 am over there is kinda like 8.00 am here, while 8.30 pm is kinda like 6 pm here.

I started out a bit earlier on Monday morning, and it was cool to see lots of kids walking around with their parents, presumably to school:



There also seemed to be lots of people cycling around, and later I saw people lugging their folded up bikes into buildings. I spotted many rows of bicycles, I kinda think they're sorta like a rent-a-bicycle service:




More pics and ramblings in the next post!

Home sweet home

Just a short update. I got home yesterday morning, jetlagg-ed and all. It was an awesome experience in Spain, with me never having gone to a western country before and kinda just making it out mostly on my own this time.

More updates and pix after I'm jetlag-ed free.