a taste of the city

After quickly conferring, Charlotte, Lisa, Josephine, and I decided to take advantage of the free afternoon in Wellington. Acting as the resident guide, I led them down Cuba Street and Lambton Quay to Civic Square to show them the giant, spherical sculpture of fern leaves that appears, on first glance, to be suspended in midair. From there, it was down to Queen’s Wharf and Frank Kitts Park, where various sculptures dot the pavement, and the trickling of a marble fountain intermingles with the sounds of the city.


We stopped briefly at the playground at Frank Kitts Park, where a giant slide made to look like a lighthouse casts its reflection into the nearby harbor. I sat down on the swings with Josephine while Lisa and Charlotte climbed the lighthouse stairs.

“Are you glad to be back?” I asked Josephine. “Is the tour just as good the second time around?” She nodded, her gaze shifting out over the water, which was being lightly ruffled by an early-evening breeze.

“This is just like going back to hometown,” she said, “visiting old friends. New Zealand is like my second hometown, and the people I know in the Middle-Earth are like my family. I miss them – like you! – and wish to see them again and again.” She stopped for a moment, thinking. “This is the worthiest thing I got in the Middle-Earth: knowing there are so many fans like me around the world. Makes me feel not so isolated.”

“You’re definitely not alone.” I turned my gaze to the water, too, where two kayakers were dipping their paddles methodically into the water, propelling their craft out into the bay. I knew what Josephine meant in her comments; I had felt it, too, in New Zealand and among Red Carpet tourists – a feeling of unwavering acceptance that made no act too silly or embarrassing.

As the sun began to sink behind the buildings of the Lambton district, we made our way along the shoreline back to the group’s hotel at Oriental Bay. I found myself walking side-by-side with Lisa, and asked her how she was enjoying her Red Carpet experience so far.

“I know you’re only a few days in,” I said, “but how is it comparing to what you expected?”

“I feel like I just found my perfect match on e-Harmony or something,” she said. We both laughed. “But really, New Zealand itself is an experience,” Lisa said. “I was a little wary coming on this tour by myself at first, but it’s been great. And Vic and Raewyn are great, too. I feel like, even though you might see them three years later for only two weeks, you’d pick up right where you left off with them and Middle-Earth.” I could certainly identify with that sentiment.

“They’re like the aunt and uncle you never had,” I said.

“Totally,” Lisa agreed.

As we rounded the harbor and passed in front of Te Papa, New Zealand’s national museum, I was about to ask Charlotte how she was finding the country. But I was distracted by a yellow Go Wellington bus stopped at a red light at the corner of Taranaki and Dixon streets. It was the bus emblazoned with “Go catch rugby at Westpac Stadium … Go take a dip in Oriental Bay … Go film a trilogy” along its top. I pointed it out to Charlotte, Lisa, and Josephine.

“You can find ‘Lord of the Rings’ everywhere here, if you know where to look,” I said.

Josephine extracted her camera from her coat pocket, but too late; the bus had already turned, and was heading away from us up Taranaki Street.

“Oh well.” She shrugged. “I’m glad I got to see it. Maybe we are not so crazy after all.”