days two & three!

• yesterday was sunday. i visited kitty & tim's church, which they described as "charismatic lite" with a decidedly international twist. most of the people are not native new zealanders - i met people from maylasia and the philippines, among other places. then, after a stop at a sort of lunch counter (curry steak pie - buttery, flaky goodness) kitty and i drove to matamata where their son seth and his wife lydia live. for you spanish speakers out there, matamata is maori and the first and third syllables are pronounced like the last syllable of doormat - has nothing to do with death and destruction.

• here i am in a hobbit-hole! lydia and seth live just down the road from where hobbiton was filmed for lord of the rings - they took me on the tour. it's not well kept up - new line cinema owns the rights to the place and had it pretty well torn up by the time the family who owned the farm was able to salvage a bit for tourists, and by agreement with new line, the tour operators aren't allowed to make any improvements to what's left. they do their best to put on a good show - starts off with sheep shearing and lamb feeding (it's a working farm with thousands of sheep - smells like it, too) and then the guide takes the bus over the hills to the sites where she points out where the set was. and that's mostly it - the party tree is easy to pick out, and a handful of hobbit holes are still there (without their brick facade) - the rest of the tour went something like this: see that blue peg across the gully? that's where the bridge started. see those yellow pegs below? that was the village centre with the pub and market. i rather enjoyed it anyway, though i wouldn't recommend it to someone who wasn't crazy about lotr.
• last night i got some good tips on travel around new zealand from lydia & seth and josiah (tim & kitty's youngest son). they recommended a cheap way to get around and pointed out some good stuff to see throughout the country. i booked bus tickets - i'll be back in their area friday night to go caving! i don't know that i've ever been in a cave before! should be fun. also i got to hear seth and josiah sing music they'd written themselves, good stuff, too bad it's not out on cd.
• today i visited lydia's class of nine-year-olds: thirty kids who had made group projects about tourism in new zealand to show me. they were adorable. they told me what they liked about new zealand and asked me what i thought of the place (terrific) and if i'd seen an assortment of kiwi television shows (never heard of them). they were also quite impressed that the entire population of new zealand could fit in chicago - twice over!
• i'm not really over the jet lag yet, as i've been droopy by mid afternoon but wide awake well before dawn. (rebeccas 1 and 2, perhaps this trip will make a morning person out of me! don't hold your breath, though - i'm awake but not exactly chipper, so i doubt it will last.)