Lorien Self, from San Diego, CA

Hello, My name is Lorien (yes, as in LothLorien. I almost was named Galadriel!) and I just wanted to share my wonderful experience meeting Elijah and Dominic with all of you fans out there. I work as an educator/tour guide at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. On Monday, July 21st, Elijah, Dominic, and a couple of their friends and bodyguard went on one of our private photo caravan tours into the large field enclosures to feed rhinos and giraffes, etc. When all of our staff found out they were visiting (major excitement!), one of our staff members went to tell them about our special tours and find out if they would like to go on one. They were very friendly and very excited about the tour and decided to take an evening tour. Unfortunately, I was already on one of my long tours and was not able to take them out, but was very happy for my friend Melissa, who is a huge fan and got to take them on a two hour tour! While doing my tour, we passed Elijah and Dominic, who were really friendly and said they were having a great time. Knowing what time they would get back from their tour, I was waiting to help offload them from the truck with paper and pen in hand. Having been named for the Elven forest in Lord of the Rings, I had to meet them and get autographs and pictures! First of all, I just have to say that Elijah and Dominic were so courteous, friendly, and appreciative. They could not say enough about how much they loved seeing the animals up close and personal, and they especially enjoyed meeting and feeding our Indian rhinos. They both were very gracious about having their pictures taken and giving autographs. I had to jokingly scold Dominic because he spelled Lorien incorrectly and had to correct it! Elijah was so delighted when he found out my name was Lorien and thought that was really cool. He wrote "What a beautiful name!" on the autograph. I so wanted to just hang out with them and chat, because they are just really nice guys and I would have loved to ask them questions about their experiences with acting and Lord of the Rings. We didn't want to keep them because we knew they wanted to have a fun and relatively "normal" day--they were also hurrying to meet our animal ambassador Cheetah, Majani. Elijah and his friends really wanted to see the Cheetahs on exhibit, but they were out of sight and asleep, so our supervisors made a special effort for Elijah and company to meet our cheetah up close. They were so appreciative and did not act like so many celebrities you hear negative stories about--they were both genuinely nice people and it just made my year to meet them! I know you would probably like to see my pictures, but because of my job (I'm in uniform) and supervisors asking us not share our celebrity pictures, I will just share my story of meeting Elijah and Dominic. Just an added note: Elijah's eyes are absolutely striking and a brilliant ocean blue. He is one of those people that you are immediately drawn to. I always thought he was such a beautiful child, but as an adult he is really a beautiful and sweet person. I won't be coming down from cloud nine for quite awhile!Thanks for all the work you do on your website, it's a good one!