So last night, I had the pleasure of going to an American Idol taping for the results show for the top three contestants (Blake Lewis, Jordin Sparks, and Melinda Doolittle). By now, most of us know that Blake and Jordin made it to the finale, which I was happy about, but I just wanted to blog a bit about my experience at AI.

First, like all television studios, the Idol studio was nowhere near as big as I expected it to be! The Idol stage with the band and everything looks so huge on TV, but it's really about half the size that all of us envision it to be. It really didn't take anything away from how incredible it was to be there and how bright the stage and lights all looked! It literally took my breath away to be in the studio because I've been such a big Idol fan since the days of Kelly Clarkson in Season One. After taking our seats for the live broadcast, I got to take in the whole American Idol experience.

Yes, the show was great overall, but here's some things that really stuck and were memorable to me.

• Seeing Elliott Yamin was a great surprise, seeing as I'm listening to his CD right now.
• Maroon 5 was pretty good as well and they had a pretty huge set up for their performance!
• One of the coolest things was just seeing Simon Cowell interact with the contestants before and after the show. He really seems to care about the contestants and he was all smiles, much different than the casual viewer would expect him to be.
• Speaking of the judges, Randy, Paula and Simon all seem to get along so well! It seemed like they were having a really good time during the commercial breaks saying hi to friends and family and talking with each other as well while they were watching the video montages!
• Luckily, I was sitting next to some Blake fans who had flown in from Oklahoma that morning, so I was in good company.
• Haley Scarnato is really, really good looking in real life! I proclaimed my love for her a few times before the taping started... I'll take her not hearing me, nor looking at me, as a connection between us.
• There's more suspense when you're watching it on TV compared to when you're watching it in the studio. There's a lot of down time during commercial breaks where a "hype man" type guy runs around and makes tons of comments, which makes it tough to really get caught up in the emotion...but that doesn't take away anything from being there.

Feel incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to go to an AI taping. It was truly a night I'll never forget!