California Dreaming

Preparing to return to Berlin, we took one last hurrah before trading the car for the UBahn. A road trip from Seattle to Southern California took us to see a friend in Vancouver, WA, my aunt, uncle & a potato gun in Northern California, LA TV madness, and family and a Zoo in San Diego.

PorterBalls Road trip starts NOW

Northern California

We stayed with my Aunt & Uncle outside of Yreka on the weekend, visiting the Etna brewery, old wild West grave sites, and some other spooky sites. My Uncle Dave also treated us to the potato cannon. Yes, that's right, CANNON. We each got to shoot it. Cannon make big BOOM!

Etna Brewery

 PLUS Dave is a master pizza tosser. Yes, Aunt Sue is a lucky women & Ian is already working on his pizza skills.

Los Angeles

We left them on Sunday to make our way to LA. We marked the momentous occasion of our 1st wedding anniversary with a meal at In-N-Out. It was only appropriate for us.

Chelsea Lately 

Stopping in Los Banos for the night, we were in LA by 1:30pm and barely made the taping we planned to go to of Chelsea Lately. The line consisted of douchebaggery like no other - we were really in LA. Overheard cell phone talk consisted of chatter about cleanses, agents and designer brands. UGH.

We had to white knuckle it as they moved some people to the back of the line and we were literally the last two guests allowed in. Whew! But finally we were in watching the filthy sausage of TV being made. Laughing on cue was bizarre, but we didn't have to fake it for long. Ross (the intern), Lonnie Love... comedy pros at work. So cool to be behind the scenes and see some seriously funny people. We also saw Johnny Knoxville do this:

How to reserve tickets to see taping of Chelsea Lately: http://on-camera-audiences.com/shows/Chelsea_Lately

 We stayed the night with one of Ian's SAE who had made the transition to law school in LA and had truly transformed from the last time we saw him in Berlin.  Underneath the LA-ness -he was still a supremely nice guy. And his location in Hollywood, right next to Michael Jackson's star on the walk of fame was pretty great.

Plus- we got to have a bite at Pink's, a family owned hot dog stand that has been in operation since the 1930's.

Price is Right

We had to get up way too early to make the next taping we wanted to see - the Price is Right! We did not make it. Just barely missed the cut off for the first show and decided to get some breakfast and try again.


At 12:15 we were back on the CBS lot, filled out paperwork, got our name tags and were waiting, waiting, waiting... wondering if we were even go to make it this time (even though they promised we would get on) as Dr. Phil's entire audience was suddenly given spots (as if I didn't dislike that dude enough).

Suddenly - we were definitely getting in and it was time to hustle for the quick producer screening before we headed in. We had neon t-shirts from our wedding and were prepared to be enthusiastic nutcases.  I thought we had a chance as we seemed to catch their eyes in the mini-interviews and Ian got a laugh, but there was no telling what was going to happen. Standing in line for so long, there starts to be a certain sense of camaraderie and all of our new friends & us were just happy to be going inside. 

...and then we were on set! Bright, chaotic and cheesy- it was hard to figure out where to look. Drew Carrey was pulling off the Bob Barker hosting spot and we were laughing, cheering, yelling with abandon. Sadly located on the very far sid we never did see ourselves on TV and were not selected to spin the big wheel or even guess the price of a necklace - but who cares! We were there and it was kinds of zany madness. Unlike Chelsea - there was nothing forced here.

The person who won the entire show? She bet $4 on her first bid. A bright bulb that one. They must have been scared we would be too good and take all that cash money. Yeah, that's it. Show aired December 8th and of course we watched it - scanning the crowd for our faces in vain. Whatever - we actually had an amazing time.

No cameras are allowed at tapings (thus we have no pics). Make sure if you go to look at the details and conditions as there are many things that can get you booted.

(Deadspin has a great piece for how to get on How My Foolproof Scientific System Got Us Onto The Price Is Right- shortcut: Lots of Screaming Enthusiasm )

Disneyland

I am typing this from Anaheim as we drove down this evening (after one last LA legendary meal at Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles). Shortly after checking in, there was the sound of explosions and I thought California was finally breaking off the mainland. Ian's days as a Disney addict prepared him better & he dragged me outside to watch the most amazing fireworks I have ever seen! Seriously- these were incredible. They appeared 3D expanding toward us and supersonic sound waves blasted my ear drums- in a good way.

We went to downtown Disney even though it was late and wandered around the magic, frolicking in the corporate charm. I hadn't realized till very recently Disneyland would be dressed for Halloween and it was looking PG spooky. Cannot wait to get in those gates tomorrow.

We give it a California.....

C!

A!

 ...ok - you get the idea.

UPDATE:

Disneyland in all of it's Halloween finest. Amusement parks are the closest thing for me to feel like a kid again.

 

 

 

After years lying dormant, my wanderlust for theme parks was re-ignited by Disneyland. In the next 3 years, we visited 3 more parks.

Disneyland Paris - France

Europark - Germany

Silverwood - Idaho, USA

Chasing Evers - Marseille, Perpignan & Escape to Bordeaux

As I type this, I am sitting in an internet cafe in Bordeaux, France, a place we never expected of visiting on our little whirl-wind tour of Europe. How did we end up in Bordeaux you ask? Well my little friend, let me explain.

After leaving the Cinque Terre, we were headed to Marseille to meet up with my high school/college buddy Sean Evers. He has family in Marseille, and we all thought it would be fun to get together and kick it in the south of France. It got off to a bad start as we arrived late to Marseille without a place to stay. Now I don't know if you've heard, but Marseille is one of the roughest towns in all of France, and isn't exactly the place you want to be rolling into town at night withough an idea of where to go... luckily Evers, being the stand up guy he is, picked us up from the station, and after a little French direction lesson from the GPS, we were dropped off at a hostel.

The next day's plan was to explore a bit of Marseille, and then hop back on the train down to south-western France and meet up with Evers and a few other peeps in the Catalonian town of Perpignan. Ebe and I explored Marseille, and saw what would be a recurring theme throughout our stay in France so far... a carousel. After having walked around Marseille for a few hours with my bag, I began to smell like a local if you know what I mean. I felt bad for the people near us on the train which we were about to bord.

Halfway to Perpignan my phone finally gets a text message from Evers telling us that unfortunately we wouldn't be able to stay with them in their family's beach house... shit. Now we were beginning to question our decision of following Monsieuer Evers almost to the border of Spain.


In the end we probably spent under an hour with him. It was pretty much the perfect storm. It really was no-one's fault, just a big misfortune of events. But hey, we got to see some really cool towns in the process, and that's why I'm here writing this blog in Bordeaux.

Bordeaux has been a surprisingly fun town. Lodging is quite cheap, and there is certainly all the wine you can drink... if we only had the money! The city is really beautiful, with wonderful gardens and amazing architecture around every corner. Ebe and I even splurged today and had a three-course lunch. Among the things we had were escargot (yes, snails), lots of duck, and creme brulee... yum. One more night here in Bordeaux and then it's off on the TVG (one of the fastest trains outside of Japan) to the City of Lights... gay (and I mean really gay) ol' Paris!

(end note on Bordeaux: we stayed in a lovely family run hotel that had an incident in the room next to us. As in, there was a suicide in the room next to us sometime in the last week. Ian wisely didn't tell me what the tag said until we were about to leave. Talk about a hang over!)

More highlights of our trip through Europe
and more of our favorite spots in France

SAE Invasion

Over the weekend we had more visitors to see us while we were in Berlin. This time it was a couple of brothers of mine from good ol' SAE Fraternity. We were expecting them both on Saturday from their respective cities of study, Dublin and Prague, but Hogie got the dates mixed up and showed up a day early on Friday! No worries, because the weather was great and we enjoyed one anther's company outside on the sidewalks of different cafes and bars... which would turn out to be a recurring theme throughout the weekend. After a night of fun and a random house party, we had to get up early (a little too early for all of our tastes) and pick up our second visitor from the airport.

If Friday wasn't the most beautiful day we had yet, Saturday blew it out of the water. We took them on a little tour of Berlin, stopping at beer gardens and parks along the way. Lucky for us, our friend Jeff was having a huge shin-dig at his apartment that night. The party was raging and there was barely room to enjoy your beer, but the company was great and everyone had a blast. On our way home we got to see the sun rise (once again) and rode the S-bahn back with a Scottish friend we had made there.


As you can imagine we got off to a late start on Sunday. But once again we were blessed to have the lucky weather. We spent a majority of the day lounging in the parks, walking Berlin, and using public pay toilets... a great day in my opinion. In the evening we met back up with our friends from the party and headed out to a little bar down the street. Little to our knowledge, two of them hadn't slept and ended up falling asleep at the bar! And you can imagine who had to deal with getting them out... no, not Superman, just Ebe and I.

Monday was another beautiful day, but unfortunately for me I had to go teach some of the dumbest kids I have... but none the less, we met up with both of them after their adventure with Knut and the rest of the animals at the Berlin Zoo, as we lounged in front of the Berliner Dom in the Lustgarten enjoying a nice cold beer. That evening we enjoyed more tasty local food, which impressed both them by it's deliciousness and value. We ended up having a nice relaxing night at home with a few other friends, enjoying some beers, watching and impersonating South Park, and reminiscing about the fraternity days. We said goodbye to both of them on Tuesday.

We were really glad they had the opportunity to visit us while we were here. We couldn't have asked for better weather, and I hope with them leaving us, they don't take it with! Until next time bat fans! Same bat channel, same bat time!