What is the best thing to do when in a foreign country? You got it, test out the healthcare system. Don’t worry, it was nothing serious, just a little visit to the Doctor. Here is the story. Elizabeth has a few piercings in her ear, and they are relatively new, just a few months old. A standard piercing typically takes 6-8 weeks to heal; these are on the upper ear and can take up to a year to fully heal. She had been taking care of the piercings, just like she should be, and simply ran out of the saline she uses to cleanse them. We subsequently discovered not all things are readily available like they are in the States. Normally I would just pop into Publix or a 24 hour Walgreens and pick up some brand of saline out of the dozen or so available. We couldn’t find any brand, at any grocery store, and pharmacies close around 5 o’clock. When Elizabeth was finally able to get to an open pharmacy, the pharmacist, who had bright blue hair and several non-visable piercings (she told, not showed), suggested a particular wash she said would work great. Bottle in hand, Elizabeth bopped back to the apartment and proceeded to dutifully follow the instructions that were printed right on the label. Satisfied we had averted the pending disaster of unwashed piercings, we all went to bed. The next day was going to be a big deal, as we had a specific trip planned with reservations and everything. Tuesday morning would prove to be a challenge to keep to the schedule.

I awoke at my customary 5am and waited for the rest of the family to rise and shine. When Elizabeth came into the living room, it was obvious something had gone terribly wrong. She had followed the instructions the night before and sprayed the wound care solution liberally on her ear. She had not blotted or wiped the overspray and had just let it air dry, again following the instructions to the letter. So, here is the problem. She is apparently highly allergic to tea tree oil. Her ear was about twice the normal size and she had an angry red rash across her jaw and down her neck. First stop was back to the pharmacy to get some direction. It is always uplifting when the medical professionals say ‘oh, that looks bad.’ With a recommendation in hand, the second stop was the doctor’s office down the street. We keep a pretty tight schedule and didn’t really have a time allotment for doctor’s visits in our timetable before the two and a half hour drive for our reservation. But, the doctors and nurses did a great job and we walked out of there with about five minutes left in our wiggle room with a prescription for steroids and antibiotics. All in all, the situation worked out just fine, and Elizabeth’s ear is no worse for the wear. And, we slid out of the garage right on time!

What was the planned excursion for the day? Hobbiton! Melissa was able to secure lunch reservations for 2nd lunch and a guided tour of The Shire. The meal was quite good with plenty of everything, and we shared a table with a new friend, Harrison from Hawaii. He was there with his wife, adult children, and granddaughter. After the lunch, Doug, our tour guide, walked us all over The Shire giving us tidbits of trivia along the way. I would like to share a few of those with you now.

This version of The Shire was not the original one built for the first 3 movies. That Shire was build like a normal movie set and was meant to be disposable. This movie set was rebuilt for The Hobbit and is almost an exact replica of the first one, just built with more permanent materials with preservation in mind. It was amazing to see just how vast the set actually is. The artists built over 40 distinct Hobbit holes, each with items that would have been used by the Hobbits that lived there. There were cheeses outside the cheesemaker’s hole, and bottles strewn about the front of the town drunk’s hole. The exacting detail was really neat to see. Some of the doors were significantly smaller than others. This is so the human actors would appear much larger than the hobbits when they were standing next to the smaller doors, and the hobbit actors would appear smaller when next to the larger doors. Another trick of forced perspective used was during a scene where Frodo and Gandolph were on the same wagon. It looked in the movie like they were right next to each other, but in reality Frodo was 3 meters away on a specially built bench. This tricked our brain into believing Frodo was that much smaller. So many recognizable elements were in Hobbiton, from the bridge into The Shire, the party tree, and even Sam’s yellow door (he is the real hero of the story). Since this is an actual movie set, the builders only made what was actually going to be seen on screen. All of the interior scenes of the Hobbit holes were filmed on a studio set elsewhere in New Zealand. Luckily, the tour operators wanted us to see what the inside of a Hobbit building would look like, so they recreated The Green Dragon Inn complete with casks of fresh ale! We enjoyed a few drinks (not me, I was driving) and had a great time on the tour, which consistently ranks in the top 10 things to do on the North island.

It had been a very exciting day, so we just headed back to Auckland and grabbed dinner at the Pita Pit for an early night. That way we would be ready for the next day’s adventure.