intense geekisms and the rugby

so yesterday i broke down and decided that when i new zealand one must go on a lord of the rings sort of activity, and so i signed up for a tour and yesterday was the day. it was a full day of driving around with two dutch guys would were nearly un-underdstandable, and a extreemly peppy woman and her husband, who it turns out know people in mendocino, what a coincidence. halfway through the day we were joined by peter, who you can see pictured with me here, acting like a hobbit. throughout the day, at various locations our guide, ted, would stop, ask us if we recognized a certain spot, and pull out some very accurate props, including a broken carrot at one point. and we would pose and he would take a photo to look exactly like the film still. it was super nerdy but kind of fun. at one point he had ears and a blonde wig even. the locations were beautiful landscapes, and alot of them were for small scenes that lasted less than a minute, fractions of a second even, but still cool to see. no one else could recognize the locations but me though so i did feel a bit like a super nerd, and none of the places we went were restricted so we could have concievable gone on our own, if one had just know wherer to look. still it was a fun day.
and after we got back into the city i ran straight to my favorite chocolate place (best hot chocolate in new zealand) where i met up with my friend jimmi and we made our way over with the crowd to the stadium to watch the rugby. hurricanes (wellignton) vs bulls (south africa). last home game for over a month but deciptivly crowded at the ticket lines for how sparsly spread the people were inside. and not the most exciting game. we were about three rows back so the action was right up close but the bulls are fifth in the league (i think) and totally slaughtered the hurricanes, who managed to scrape up a little dignity from where they had deposited it in the feild by scoring a try in the last ten seconds (bringing the score to 14/19 which was less embarrasing) and the spectators shuffled out like a morose herd, little kids running around with big foam hands and crazy hats, not caring about the game, just likeing the excitement. but i couldn't have just watched rugby on tv in a pub all the time. it wouldn't have been anywhere as authentic.