Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Backstage Pass: Anaheim/L.A.

Last month, I experienced a weekend for the books.  It was time for my annual "business" trip with Box's snack and drink vendor, and this time around we were going to Anaheim for the Expo (last year, you might recall, was Portland!).  Basically I was faced with the prospect of hanging out with part of my awesome team (see Addi and Jason, below, after some creole cuisine at Downtown Disney), sampling a ton of snacks, and little did I know...meeting Channing Tatum.  Yes, the star of Magic Mike, Step Up, and your most private, racy dreams.  


We got hooked up by our vendor to go to the private meet and greet area where Channing was hanging out and repping Runa, a natural energy drink.  Addi and I went up first, and she was a rock star when she asked him about his art hobby, at which point he whipped out his...


...phone, and showed us pictures of his latest sculpture.  My claim to fame is that I was bold enough to touch his abs in the photo.  Don't know what came over me, but I liked it.

After the fair, I headed to L.A. to spend the weekend with Ian.  He was a great host, humoring my request to tour the WB lot (where the poor guy already spends the whole week working).  The highlight was getting to see the Central Perk set, and I also got to see a ton of batmobiles and the Harry Potter exhibit, where I tried on the sorting hat (Hufflepuff!).  That night we went to a BBQ at Charlotte's house (my roommate from Bologna) and it was a lovely little reunion filled with guacamole.


On Sunday, Ian, his girlfriend, Kelsey, and I headed to Disneyland!  It was a beautiful day and not as crowded as we expected so we got to ride our favorites twice.  We ate everything (I seriously ate eggs benedict, a morning churro, about 8 snacks I'd brought from the fair, a corn dog, and beef stew).  "Disneyland requires a lot of energy," she insisted defensively. 


The parade was fun of course, and I'm in negotiations with Disney to make these motorized carousel horses a commuter option:


Such a great weekend that helped take the edge off of my general animosity toward L.A.  Thanks, Ian!

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