Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Team Dallas True Blood Paleyfest Travelogue: Part two by ObjectDesire

Day 2 Agenda: Easter Sunday Brunch at hotel, Getty Villa/Malibu, Drive PCH1, Fish Tacos, Gran's House?, Parker Lighthouse Restaurant & Alex's Bar (TB Fan Meet-up #2), and Surprise Karaoke

Leisurely brunch eaten in the beautiful rooftop garden of our hotel:
brioche, Mediterranean frittata, fresh fruit, french press coffee...yum!
Return to room to make preparations for the day. Dallas blogs/twitters.

Getty Villa/Malibu: Once again, no traffic to speak of. See Pacific Ocean for first time this trip. Arrive 45 minutes ahead of our reservation time, but are admitted anyway. Participate in an interesting tour of the Villa grounds in which we learn to make jello and that our guide doesn't know how to email. Leave tour early and enjoy cappuccino/coffee/chai tea latte to gather strength for self-guided tour of museum and grounds. Many beautiful pieces of Roman and Egyptian art are viewed (jewelry, pottery, sculptures).
The grounds are beautiful and we have wonderful views of Malibu hills surrounding the Villa. Discover upon leaving that we have not paid excellent attention to where we parked. Visit several parking levels before stumbling upon car in another parking area.

Fish Taco Stand: ( it's actually Malibu seafood) Dallas takes us to her favorite fish taco stand, on PCH1 just north of Pepperdine University. The drive along the ocean is beautiful. At the taco stand, we all have the fish tacos which are made with a combination of grilled salmon, tilapia, and halibut, shredded cabbage, and special sauce. Very good! Once again, excellent people watching--we see couples, families, surfers, college students, and tourists; Dallas scores a coveted table for us.

Drive over mountains on Malibu Canyon Road. Once over the mountain, Dallas has some information about location of filming locations.We feel we get awfully close, but have to cut the search short because we are suddenly out of time.

Zip back to hotel using freeways (with NO traffic!) and change clothes for dinner and Alex's Bar. Deciding what to wear for a nice restaurant then a rocker bar is a bit tricky. Dallas and OD both end up with white shirt, jacket, and jeans. Nocturn wears cool T, black jeans and jacket. We are excited to finally meet @SookieBonTemps outside of Twitterville. She joins us at our hotel for the drive to Long Beach. She is beautiful, vivacious, intelligent, and funny--just what one who reads her tweets would expect!

Parker Lighthouse/Long Beach: We are worried about time because we get a late start, but once again NO traffic to slow us down. We take only one wrong turn, but Dallas enjoys fast u-turns, so this is a treat for her. We arrive at the restaurant only 20 minutes late. Here we are joined by IYOUWANT2, Robiart, FangsNRoses and her daughter, Dana, and Jeweltoo. The food is excellent (seafood, steaks, salads, gumbo) and a few of us indulge by sharing a warm apple tart...mmmmmm. We spend about 2-1/2 hours visiting and eating before some of us head out to meet more Dallas Blog fans at Alex's Bar.

Alex's Bar: We have an adventure finding Alex's Bar in a 3-car caravan.
Ms. Robiart has been to the bar before but confesses in advance that she is not skilled at finding even familiar locations. After a slightly wild u-turn, we lose Robiart (in car 1) but are talking to her by phone.
IYOUWANT2 (in car 2) has a GPS system and we follow her. We drive into an AutoZone parking lot and to the left we see an alley with a very familiar structure--the building we see in background as patrons enter Fangtasia in TrueBlood. Yay! Once again, Dallas finds that elusive parking spot (poor IYOUWANT2 does not have magic and parks on street). We are met in parking lot by a handsome young man who says, "Are you Dallas?" He turns out to be Patrick, Robiart BF. We discover that Robiart has had a flat tire. Patrick is on his way to rescue her and has been waiting to make sure we arrived safely. We stand briefly outside gazing in awe at the front of the building. The awning and the window are both there (no "Fangtasia" of course, but very exciting to stand in that spot!). We are greeted by a very large bouncer who could probably give Quinn a run for his money. Inside, we find the IMdB ladies, Beadrbob, Ei Ei, and Mermaid, along with several other TrueBlood/Dallas Blog fans. OD confesses that after 2 glasses of wine at dinner and a Heinekin at the bar, plus very loud music...she did not get all the names of these wonderful ladies. Perhaps Dallas can fill in a few blanks here? The live band is in full swing, music is loud but good, even if OD cannot understand a word that is sung, age of crowd is young (20s).
We all make sure to visit the infamous ladies room to take pics of kewpie vampire doll murals. Dallas and Sookie decide to take a pic together in the photo booth and find some interesting items inside the booth.
Most of the ladies have been at the bar for awhile and they depart shortly after we arrive. They will all be at PaleyFest tomorrow. Ms. Robiart makes it to bar but has had to abandon her car because the correct tools to change tire are not available. Her knight in shining armor, Patrick, heads out to find tools. We hang out at bar for awhile. As we are leaving, we find Alex, bar owner, sitting outside. He clears the outside area so we can take pics then comes over to chat. He has correctly surmised that we are True Blood fans.
Dallas' glamours him and he reveals some interesting info regarding filming at the bar for Season 2. The info is innocent, but gives us a big clue about how closely Season 2 will follow Book 2 .

Karaoke: On the way back from Long Beach, Sookie receives a call--some family and friends are at a karaoke bar on LaCienaga. Dallas and Noct are excited to join them; they are kind enough to drop a very tired OD at the hotel first though. Reports have it that Dallas and Noct do not participate in karaoke, but Miss Sookie gets a standing ovation! Sookies family and friends are fun and entertaining. It is very late when Dallas and Noct arrive back at hotel. ( very very late !)

1 comments:

Jasperann said...

Wish I could have been there! Sounded like so much fun! Thanks for the post. =)