Food - Part1
since I did the research for provence (the southern providence of France), i really anticipated the food there. some webpage i read even says: the chance you have bad meal in french is low. wow... what a statement. but i really think that's true. french really know how to cook and make everything on the table delightful. in fact, i thought about doing some culinary class in provence. however, most of them last for 3days to one week... that's too long that we couldn't afford... time-wise (I didn't even get to the price part yet)

anyway, food in both spain and france didn't fail me... well.. most of the time. =)

Spainish food
Spainish food is relatively simpler and not as delicate as French. However, it matches the people there: care free, casual and comfy.

People like to drink anytime and anywhere. so they invented tapas so that they can have food with beer and liquor ... and more important, it is good for hanging out. most of the tapas are very simple to prepare. I took a look of some books about Spanish cuisine, some of the tapas are real simple. oh, and they really know how to cook squid, octopus and caramari well.... you wouldn't go wrong with those dishes.

paella (aka seafood rice dish) is really tasty, in fact, there are a lot of varieties. We didn't try all out but the ones we tried were nice, esp the black rice with cuttlefish with its ink (told you, squid!!) however, I think it is not easy to make this dish well done. we experienced to have some "medium well" rice.

ham (Jamon en espanol) is .... hm.... very popular there. it is kinda like in between of bacon and the Gin Hau ham of Chinese. it is dry (wind-dried I think) and salty. served in very thin slices. good with beer but after eating once or twice, we had enough. hm.... yea.... BUT pork (other than jamon) is juicy and tender in Spain. Spainards know how to cook pork and i think they just simple like pigs. ^^

unfortunately, the wine in Spain is so so. maybe that's the reason y they have Sangria to cover the imperfectness of red wine. Oh yea, sangria is not bad! actually, there are different types of sangria. I had one kind is red wine + coke. taste good and bubbly refreshing... and it is easy make our own (again.. match the characteristic of Spanish cuisine). Maybe I should try that out sometimes.

last but not least, coffee is superb. coffee in spain is rich and taste really good. but I don know if it can top the one I tried in Austria... hahah both are good. it comes from the expresso machine so that's reason y it is so rich. since we went to france afterward and french coffee sucks, we missed spanish coffee soooooo much. yea... i am missing it now.

already a long entry... so.... to be continued.... Food - Part II

Yes! back from my Spain & S. France trip. \^o^/

From my past experience, I think I would not do picture-travelogue this time because I took around 10GB pic and my computer is currently unable to hold them all. Also, lazy me would not write efficiently. hahahah so for pic, please see fb or my shutterfly invite later..... hahaha

I know I would write a lot... I just like writing. hahhaha. I would try my best to keep it interesting. ^.~ I know... I said Part 1.... that means I will write many episodes. hahaha

Transportation
Really.. I want to dedicate the first chapter on this topic since there were so many new things to me in this trip.

Air
We took British Airways since we found a promotion to Barcelona. As you can tell, we need to transfer in London. ha this is the pain part. London Healthow (LHR) is soooooooo huge and i would say it is kinda old that it doesn't have good inter-terminal transportation built. JFK -> LHR is international but LHR -> BCN (Barcelona) is (EU)domestic. So it required us to transfer from one terminal to another at-least-10-min-bus-trip-apart terminal. and in every terminal, we had to go thru the security check, which is quite thorough and serious, i.e. takes time. Right.... we needed to run to catch plane in LHR! that's crazy! (but then the plane was delay because of the busy traffic in the airport! DUH~) We didn't want to have another Amazing Race moment -- see the plane door closed at the gate.

Other than that, BA is pretty good. Food is ok. Entertainment is good (a lot of movie to pick!) and seat is quite comfy. Not to mention, the wine is free and some of selections are really good! hahaha

We also took flight with Iberia @ Madrid to Marseilles, France. nothing much to say about the airline. But huge  thumb up for the Madrid airport (MAD). Its architecture was brilliant. It is beautiful and green. It makes good use of daylight to save energy and project nice pattern on the ground. We just couldn't stop taking pic of it.

Train
We took trains in Spain. We hopped on train with sleeping coach and Spain's high speed train, AVE (runs up to 300km/hr). AVE looks nicer and is more comfortable than TGV (high speed train in France) but I took TGV 6 years ago. Hopefully, TGV has improvement. Spain requires reservations for all AVE trains. So the outcome was we didn't really save by buying Europasses. and the trains between Madrid and Barcelona were so popular that we were unable to get in the earlier trains. We had to wait at the stations for 2 hours, even though there are trains every half an hour. =(

Driving
First time ever... driving outside N America. I rented a car for our Provence Road Trip! I was so so so excited about this... until i sat in the car and facing those "automatic" shifts -- R N A M..... what are these?? So how can I make the car move? Stupid me tried to ask the person in the rental place but he was busy. Then a guy came in to return his car and he told me to put the shift to A. Viola! wait.... still not moving? oh ok.... need to step on gas... it is not D shift in america a.. the car wouldn't move forward unless there is gas. oh this is my first diesel car too!

Driving in France is so much diff. The roads are narrower and basically, ppl don't signal much. but good that I didn't drive in busy cities (the busiest one I drove in is Marseilles).  Signs use pictures and more like those I saw in HK...phew.... good for ppl don know French. The best thing I like on the road is round-about 迴旋處. whenever I am not sure if the exit is the correct one, i just turn around the circle one more time to take a better look. I think we should have more of these here in the USA. hahahah

Oh I really need to mention about.... I drove on the F1 Monte Carlo Grand Prix road in Monacco! hahaha but it can't compare the scenic road I drove from Monaco to Nice. The turns are so fast and instence. I was super excited and then started to worry about my passengers would throw up. Wonderful experience!!
Read more...

By Peter Bregman
Special to CNN

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Susan Boyle, who recently performed on the U.K. television show "Britain's Got Talent," has captured the world's attention.

In case you've missed it, she's a 47-year-old unemployed charity worker who lives with her cat in a small village in Scotland.

As soon as she walked on stage, the audience began to snicker and roll their eyes. Simon Cowell, the show's host, asked her some pre-performance questions in his famously condescending style, and to the audience's enjoyment, she answered awkwardly.

She was painfully ordinary, and everyone was prepared, looking forward even, to see her fail.

By now, if you don't know the story, you could guess it, right? She more than wowed them. She opened her mouth to sing, and, as judge Piers Morgan later said, she had "the voice of an angel."

She wasn't painfully ordinary; she was amazingly extraordinary. The audience immediately jumped to a standing ovation and stayed there until the end of the song. The YouTube video of Susan's performance has, as of Tuesday, received more than 35 million views. Watch Larry King's interview with Susan Boyle »

We are riveted, and a recent article in USA Today does a good job of cataloguing all the reasons. We prejudged her by her looks and were fooled. We experienced the gamut of emotions in a few short moments: guilt, shame, vindication, hope. She's a modern-day Cinderella, and these days, it's a wonderful distraction and inspiration to witness the triumph of the human spirit.

But there's something else Susan Boyle awakens in us as we watch her come out of her shell: our own selves. Who among us does not move through life with the hidden sense, maybe even quiet desperation, that we are destined for more? That underneath our ordinary exterior lays an extraordinary soul? That given the right opportunity, the right stage, the right audience, we would shine as the stars we truly are?

That promise underlies most successful advertising campaigns: the desire to transform from caterpillar to butterfly. Maybe if you buy that (fill in the blank), people will see you for the sophisticated, cool, gorgeous, talented, lovable person you know you really are.

But in our less desperate moments, we know we can't purchase that transformation. Although Susan Boyle became an overnight sensation, hers was not an overnight transformation. She's been practicing singing since she was 12. In her case, overnight was 35 years.

It's easy to admire Susan. But it's far more interesting to be transformed by her. "There is grace," a friend recently wrote to me, "in being molded by your own gifts."

To allow yourself to be molded by your own gifts takes courage. You have to be willing to stand there, exposed and authentic, while the audience rolls their eyes at you and sneers, expecting failure. And then, of course, you have to fail, laugh or cry, and keep going until, one day, they stop laughing and start clapping.

But you can't do it alone. Susan Boyle didn't; she had a voice coach, Fred O'Neil, who worked with her for years and encouraged her to audition. And she had her mother.

"She was the one who said I should enter 'Britain's Got Talent.' We used to watch it together," Boyle told the British paper The Times of her mother, who died in 2007, "She thought I would win. ... I am doing it as a tribute to my mum, and I think she would be very proud."

If we're lucky, we have parents who encourage us. Nothing really replaces a mother or father who believes in you. But even if you don't have parents who believe in you, it's important to have someone. Someone you trust, enough that when they offer criticism, you know it's to draw you out more fully, not shut you down even partially.

And a good supporting friend even sees through the talent, right through to you. With her mother gone, Boyle still has O'Neil. And recently he said to The Telegraph that he was worried all this attention was obscuring "the real person" he knew.

"I am concerned about her being surrounded by all these PR people," he said, "that she will not be given the time to sing."

Susan Boyle is a phenomenal role model for all of us, not just because of her talent or her courage or her perseverance or her supportive friends. She is a phenomenal role model for us because she is us, in all our awkward ordinariness and amazing extraordinariness.