arrival

Though the main motivation for the trip up to Auckland was to see New Zealand’s national rugby team, the All Blacks, take on the Australian Wallabies, a group of six international students – including me – from Massey University had also planned to take a day trip to Matamata, where the Hobbiton scenes in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy were filmed.

As the six of us filed through the turnstile that marked our entrance into the small arrivals area of the Auckland Domestic Airport, we were immediately greeted by a grinning Vic James. Vic, co-owner and operator of Red Carpet Tours, would be our guide for the day.

“Good to see you again!” Without even waiting for a handshake, he promptly wrapped me in a big bear hug, his protruding belly limiting how close we could get. “How long has it been now? Two years?”

“Three,” I corrected him, smiling. “It’s good to be back.”

This wasn’t my first time in New Zealand, nor would it be my first time visiting the Hobbiton site. In 2005, following my high school graduation and after three years of saving my meager paychecks from my job at a movie theater, I joined a Red Carpet Tour in order to see New Zealand. I spent twelve days traversing the country with Vic, his wife and tourism partner Raewyn, and nine “Ringers” (code for “Lord of the Rings” fans) from around the world. Like most Red Carpet groups, we had gone to New Zealand an eclectic hodgepodge of strangers with nothing in common except our love for hobbits, elves, and all things Middle-Earth. But after traipsing through snow on the side of a volcano, fording mountain streams bare-legged in the dead of winter, and sharing more than a few laughs at our own expense, that one commonality was more than enough to break down the barriers of age, culture, and language, making way for friendships and lasting memories.

The situation that day in Auckland wasn’t so dissimilar. Though I knew Josh, Jen, Denise, Una, and Melinda from Massey orientation and shared university activities, this was the first time we were all travelling as a group. We were only going to spend a day in Middle-Earth together, but, standing in the arrivals area of the airport with our adventure just about to begin, I already felt as though we shared something unique.

I quickly introduced everyone in the group to Vic, rattling off where each of them was from: Iowa via California, Illinois, Vermont, North Carolina, and Germany. Vic enveloped each of their hands between both of his, grinning and welcoming them in turn to Auckland. There were a few “Cheers, mate”s thrown in, one or two from Vic and the others from Jen, Josh, and Una.

The Americans in our group, after living in New Zealand for a month, were already starting to pick up certain turns of phrase and slang words used by the locals. The current favorite seemed to be the word “cheers,” which is a sort of blanket term that can apply to anything from “Hello” to “Thank you.” I often felt awkward using it, partly because I didn’t think it sounded as sincere as a good old-fashioned “Thank you.” And I also knew I sounded dumb because, when used by us Yanks, “Cheers, mate” just lacks something – namely, the cool Kiwi accent.