Here are the logs for my trip to New Zealand. It's babbly and sometimes there are fragmented sentences and thoughts. Basically copied directly from my travel journal, so excuse the switch in tenses. I'll try to link to any interesting sites/locations and YHAs. Enjoy!

For this length of the trip, I stayed with Stacey & Dianna at their place outside of Wellington.

November 28, 2003

Woke up at 6:30am. Eh.. no shower. No icky, clear-door public showers for me, thank you. Threw stuff into the car and booked ass out of the there. I think we were all excited to get to Wellington. Was there by 11:30am, which I'm told is really good time. Drove past Oriental Bay where the Boys learnt to surf. Had a load of spots pointed out on the way back, but I've forgotten. Swiss cheese memory. Oh.. the cemetery where they did sound recording. That was an interesting factoid. Bought some things at the store - and food of course. Fruit! Hung out at the apartment for the day. Tonight we're going to see "Mystic River." Tomorrow night is the Howard Shore concert! I need to buy a load of postcards to send people. Oh.. and sets of LoTR stamps at the post office.

So.. okay, no "Mystic River". It was sold out. Instead we saw "Love, Actually," which is a cute British film with a cute American. Uhm. And Keira Knightley. It's a good film- highly recommend it. After the movie we drove to Seatoun to have a look around. Drove through Stone St. where WETA is located. Eee! I was excited.

November 29, 2003

Woke up a bit later than normal. It was freezing. Shower had no hot water. Gah. We went shopping around 10am. I got loads of stuff - new wool jacket, scarf, shirt, soaps, and postcards - oh, and LoTR stamps. Also snapped pictures of the cave troll and the Fell Beasts around town. Came back around 2pm and had lunch - PB&J w/bananas. Got ready for the Howard Shore concert. Dressed nice. Did hair. All good.

The Howard Shore concert was fantastic! (I sat in seat 47.. mwhahaa!) There were so many fans there dressed in costume. One guy was a Nazgul. Apparently, nearly all of the cast were there, basically in the balcony area over our heads. I did see Nathaniel Lees when we went in and again when during intermission. The orchestra was sort of meh and the solo singers needed work. The boy kept missing his notes and the woman in red sang way too low and butchered "Gollum's Song." I can excuse the boy and the orchestra due to.. nerves. But that woman? Meh. Howard was so active when he was conducting. It was cool. It was really annoying that people kept snapping photos during the performance - it was blinding and painful. So rude. Same when the cast or whoever showed up and then back again at intermission. I was blinded and the cameras weren't even pointing at me. To be honest, I probably would have done the same if I were down there.. and had a camera. Ignoring the fact that it is totally rude to be blinding people during a concert and that I'm too short to see anything anyway.

At the end, Viggo came out twice with the other musicians and Howard. I wish I did have a camera then. After the concert, we left, walking past a security blockade. If my brain were operating properly, I would have stopped there so we could see them leaving instead of standing outside in the cold where we couldn't see anything anyway. It was cold. The only person we saw was Richard Taylor. Decided to leave before we froze to death.

November 30, 2003

Went to the faire today. Spent way too much again. This morning I was cranky. Well... depressed. Homesick maybe. I dunno. I was better later. Anyway... the faire was cool. Bought cuffs and a jade carving. After the faire we sat at the foreshore and ate. Then we went to the Te Papa museum- very cool stuff. Bought a Lord of the Rings location guide. So many cool things there. Want a Frodo figure now. Ha! Later on we stopped at a CD store so Dee could get the Return of the King soundtrack. I can hear Billy/Pippin singing now. Oh! They had Just Like Blood in stock! Hmm. Am cranky again. I want to go home... but not. Need to write postcards today. Think tonight is just a chill night with nowhere to go. Tomorrow will be a crazy fangirl day. Oy.

December 1, 2003

Sitting here at 9:45am - pretty close to the Embassy and about.. one row of people from the barrier. Fangirls all around us. Apparently last year it was nothing like this. The girls showed up around 3pm and they still got really close to the Embassy and right up to the barrier. Huh. Oh. Great. Random screaming has started. Such pain. People kept coming in and trying to take our spots. Bitch, please. The two guys in front of us were from One News and were saving spots for the camera. As the day wore on, the camera guy came to adjust things. Then the reporter, Mike Jaspers, came in. He looked like Agent Smith with his dark glasses and black suit. Anyway, waiting was all very crappy. Eventually, I just stood up... with hours to go until the parade would even start. I'm sure to tan... stood in the sun so long. It was hot and crappy. Mostly just with the hot and sunny.

Once the parade started, you could hear the increasing screams. Oy. The poor news people. There were kids to the right who kept getting in his shot & he was trying to be nice, but was getting pissed. This woman to my left was trying to push her way pass me, but I was pretty well planted between bags. I got some really crappy pics and not nearly as many as I thought. Phillipa passed first, then there was Elijah, Viggo, etc. All of them pretty much. Sean Bean wasn't there. Viggo ran in and smooched Billy. Hugo Weaving and Bernard Hill walked by, but I didn't see. Hugo I totally missed because Orlando Bloom was to my right and the kids were pushing the reporter basically on top of me. So while I was inches away from Orlando, Elijah, and Viggo, it pretty much didn't make a difference sine I was busy trying not to be squished. Only after Elijah had passed did I remember Tomination. [face palm] David Wenham ran by quickly. Richard Taylor was lovely and I guess was handing out little WETA pins. No funny moments. Elijah is so lovely. Dom Monaghan was being manhandled down the carpet. He was on one side and the guy directing him around shoved him roughly to the fans on the other side. Poor Dom.

We left pretty quickly once all the cast & Peter had gone through. Came back to the flat to relax before we went out at night. There was news coverage on TV and we saw our Agent Smith reporter dude. Any interesting bits weren't shown and I got pretty sick of the coverage. I still don't know if the frenzy was worth a couple of pictures. I didn't even get anything signed, though I was close enough. Oh well. "Fellowship..." was on TV at 7pm and it was well over and done with by the time we left for the bars at midnight.

To me, the bars are boring. Though, Molly Malone's was pretty cool. Makes me crave BDS. Heh. I had a tiny hope of seeing the boys, but honestly if I were them I would stay the hell inside. The fangirls were still out at 1am and it looked like some of them turned into bar sluts. We went to shoot some pool, then came back. I wish it were more interesting. Tomorrow... maybe a tattoo.

December 2, 2003

I am basically kicking myself for not getting up an hour earlier. If I did, I would have gone to lunch at Fidel's. [That's all I'm going to say about that...]

Have decided that I have an Elijah fixation. And that Elijah must be Tominated.

Went to the post and sent off my postcards. Cruised to the airport, but there were too many fangirls, so we went to buy groceries for dinner. I made meatloaf. No tattoo -- there weren't any appointments for today or tomorrow, so it'll have to be when we get back from the South Island. Leonard Maltin's film class at UCLA is getting a showing of "Return of the King" and the Hobbit Boys will be there for a Q&A?? WTF? So jealous. One of the few times I wish I were still in school.

We have one more day in Wellington then it's down to the South Island. Hopefully I don't run out of money. Called mom today and she did get me the X2 widescreen DVD! Yay! She's going to pick me up the Pirates of the Caribbean DVD too. Sweet!

December 3, 2003

Woke up lateish. Called the tattoo place, but no one answered. Went to see "Elf," which was funny. Did a tiny bit of shopping. Made tuna noodle casserole for dinner and went to bed after seeing "Save the Last Dance" on TV.

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