Swords

Hello my friends!

I've had a good week and I hope you have too.

It was a slow week at work, but now that they have finished redoing the floor in the production area things should be up and running again soon. New equipment is also on its way so it's a very exciting time here at Bio-Mer. Actually, my supervisor just said there were some complications, so the new machine is delayed. Still good stuff though.

Friday and Saturday I slept in and relaxed and got to talk to some of you lovely people! The real excitement, however, started Saturday evening. I had my ticket and I was ready to watch some bona fide New Zealand Rugby. Riding the metro is free if you have a ticket so the bus quickly filled up with rugby fans and we were on our way to the stadium. There was an older man waiting with me at the bus stop and he started to explain things to me. When we got to the stadium he pointed out where the buses would be at the end of the game, and it was a good thing he did because it was the opposite direction from where they dropped us. At this point it was an hour before the game started, but the stadium was already filling up fast so we parted ways and found our seats.

I had a cheap seat, but it wasn't too bad. The group with the seats directly next to me didn't arrive until directly before the game started, but there was plenty happening before that. The players were warming up on the field, and I give them mad props, because doing anything in below freezing weather is difficult, let alone sprinting and tackling with nothing but a jersey to protect them.

The Christchurch team, the Crusaders, has the best record in the Super 15 league, which is the 15 best rugby teams in the southern hemisphere. On Saturday they played the Wellington Hurricanes and the fans were ready for a fight! Before the game started they had crusaders on horses riding around the stadium and as they circled the crowd cheered and waved their foam swords like there was no tomorrow. As a horseman in the Hurricane team colors road around everyone booed except the few Hurricane fans, to whom the Crusader fans good-naturedly yelled "I know where you're sitting!"

At first I was just trying to watch the game, but after a short time I gave up and asked the person next to me about the scoring. There was a group of friends next to me and when they realized I had no idea what was going on one of them would lean over and explain something to me. I learned about scoring and scrums and toss ins and off-sides, and during half time, the best places to go skiing. The Crusaders lost, 22-23, but it was a good game, I think.

On the way home the man next to me on the bus thought I sounded Canadian, until he asked me say "eh." Apparently I failed the test because that was enough to convince him that I was American. It's interesting, when people realize I'm American, most of the type they are politely interested and ask what I'm doing here, but sometimes I'll meet someone that is just fascinated by my Americanness. I got home, had a grilled pb&j, and went to bed because Sunday had an early start.

After a quick breakfast I got on the tour bus and headed to Mt. Sunday, or what is famous as Edoras in the Lord of the Rings. There were four other people on the tour, two from Australia and two from the UK and everyone was quite nice. It's about 170 km from Chch to Mt. Sunday, but we made a few stops along the way. The first one was at a cafe in a tiny town that had only a cafe, church, and school. And sheep. After having a cup of tea and a sausage roll, the tour guide got some muffin scraps from the cafe waitress and we fed a couple of sheep that were outside. They weren't part of a flock, they were more like pets and they sure did like the muffins. They were so soft and fluffy! Dreams really do come true. We also stopped to take pictures at some other scenic spots before we arrived at the base of Mt. Sunday. The little four wheel drive bus had trouble making it up very far because the ground was quite muddy so we walked the rest of the way. The tour guide had a backpack full of goodies for us to play with at the top.

Mt. Sunday is a relatively small mountain compared to the mountains around it, but it was plenty tall when we were walking. It is amazing. I can understand why they chose it for the set. Huge mountains on either side and a fairly level valley between the two with a river flowing along one side. We got to the top and took pictures with some swords, an ax and a flag, all replicas from the movies. The guide had pictures from the set and it was quite easy to see, yes, this is exactly where they filmed this bit. My inner and outer nerd were having a great time. Apparently it took them 8 months to build the set on Mt Sunday and they filmed there for about 12 days. Crazy. And the conservation department were quite strict and said they couldn't move any rocks and if they moved a plant they had to put it back in the same spot.

We walked back to the tour van and then rode back to Mt Pott's Station, where we had our lunch. Pumpkin soup, tuna salad sandwiches, white wine, and chocolate cake. Everything was delicious except for the wine. I can understand, I think, why people like to drink it with fish, but I thought it tasted awful. Anyway, after lunch we headed back to town and on the way we watched a behind the scenes DVD about the movies and Edoras and now I really want to movie marathon.

If I have inspired you to watch the movies, the Two Towers has several scenes at Mt. Sunday for your viewing pleasure. If you want to wait to watch the movies until I'm back, I'll be more than happy to be that obnoxious person who says "ooh, ooh, I've been there!" at every chance I get.

I'm at work, killing time because my supervisor has some friends of his here and they are talking business and other old man stuff and now he's trying to explain to his buddy how to use a touchscreen phone. "You've got to touch it gently, caress it."

This post has gotten really long, so thanks for sticking around if you've read this far. I should probably find something productive to do.