I think I can safely say I’m not your typical middle aged woman. I lead a relatively quiet family life, no busy social life for me. I work in finances and I go about my everyday business without being the life of the party. Some would even say “a bit boring” aside from the holidays to cool destinations we frequently take. But what’s beneath the surface is that I’ve been a Trekkie since I was 7 years old. I’ve seen all the episodes of the Original Series over and over again, seen all the other series and loved them all. Collected all the movies, but I did draw the line at donning pointy ears or a yellow tight shirt.
Then Peter Jackson came along and decided to make a book I’ve loved since my teen year into three awesome movies. The Lord of the Rings caused me and my husband to look forward to a new film three years in a row, going to midnight premieres and buying the extended editions to watch until we could predict what Gandalf would say in the next scene. I was so glad when Peter decided to take The Hobbit on and make them into three great movies again. Good years ahead for us again. Of course by this time we had infected our daughter too, so the last time we sat in the cinema till 2.30 am to watch the Desolation of Smaug together.
And now back to why I wrote “not your typical middle aged woman”. The three of us have visited HobbitCon in Bonn, Germany two years in a row. Maybe there are a lot of youngsters who will think, well, and what’s so special about that? But take into consideration what I wrote before, this was quite a step for us! We didn’t exactly blend in, in fact we kinda stood out in our “normal” clothes amongst people who had done their best to look amazing. We were surrounded by Hobbits with big hairy feet, lovely slender Elves with long blond hair and pointy ears, and lots of lady-dwarves in lifelike gear (and with a beard!). But it didn’t matter, as we had a great time watching the actors on stage telling their funny anecdotes, even getting an autograph of the actor who plays Fili, and generally watching all the dressed up people go by.
In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I can understand people buying a three day weekend ticket, staying in the convention hotel and totally immersing themselves in this wonderful world. We only went for one day, and I must say I spent the rest of the Easter weekend missing it! But, common sense prevailed; to expensive, and maybe it would get boring after the one day…maybe.