you might think that a lord of the rings tour would be heavily populated by nerds and that you would be driven around in a big tour bus. not so, my friends. our only two other companions were an old indian couple and the tour took place in a white mini-van. this is quite a joke on us. and an expensive joke at that.
david, our driver, is really just like a taxi cab driver. he took us to some LoTR filming sites–at some we didn’t even get out of the car and at the others they looked almost nothing like the scenes in the movie. rohan stronghold? filmed at a working quarry. river anduin? very low this time of year. gardens of isengard? well, there were trees. rivendell? ditto.
after these stunning examples of scenery being put to use by peter jackson in creative ways. we went to the palliser bay seal colony. this had nothing to do with LoTR. no seals in that movie, bucko. OIL (old indian lady) counted the seals. many times. over and over. because she is old.
she is also inordinately fascinated by cows in pasture. “bapi!” she yells, “take photo of cows!” and he obliges. he has been videotaping near constantly. with running commentary. completely uninteresting commentary, mind. he is no kristen, sean, or jason, after all. it is more along the lines of, “there’s a cow. he’s moving. there he goes. cow.”
nuala and i just climbed up 258 stairs to the palliser lighthouse. OIL followed us. we took 5 minutes, she took like 20. the whole time i was squeaking in panic, “don’t die! don’t die!” later we found out she is 63, has diabetes, and had a stroke last year. if she had asked glacier guide troy if she might climb the stairs he would have said, “well, you could, but you’ll die.” this being troy’s all-purpose phrase for any situation on the glacier.
in addition to her litany of ailments, we also learned that, in contrast, these stairs didn’t have monkeys that would pull your pants off like the stairs in malaysia. OIL seems quite overwrought with malaysia and monkeys.
as she began her ponderous descent, i was at least able to temper my squeakings of “don’t die!” with a ready shrug and the consolation of, “at least there’s no monkeys.”
at the winery, bapi proclaimed with authority, “i will test the wine and my wife will test the water.” now here is a man who needs a swift kick in the balls.
Forget all purpose statement for on a glacier. It is an all purpose for any time at all.
Can I have some milk?
Well you could, but you’d die.
I love Troy.
OIL also said, “Can you catch the seals?” What she would do with a seal if she caught one I don’t know but she wanted to know if it was allowed. Crazy Indians.
that was awesome. i laughed so loud gene complained. but not because you are funny, so don’t get a big head.
finally got my first two postcards from you guys today. i am so jealous about the loaded hog. i hope you had the sense to procure me a cardboard coaster from there or something.
evil laugh, i stole you something so much better than a cardboard coaster!
IS IT A HOG??? (is it bigger than sean’s?)
The only reason there weren’t seals in thefilm verson of LOTR was the limited running time. Tolkien details the crucial role in the overthrow of Sauron played by the seals of Middle-Earth in The Sealmarillion. There’s a lot of seal genealogy and folklore to work though in that book, so I wouldn’t exactly recommend it, but let me just say, it wasn’t a coincidence that the men of Rohan found all that mysterious fish before the Battle of Helm’s Deep.