Birthday Funday

Yesterday was my birthday. I am now really old.

The day didn't go entirely to plan. In the morning I was meant to be joining the hot neurosurgeon (on who I have the biggest crush in my life. Turns out my type is paediatric neurosurgeons, which limits my number of potential partners somewhat) for an exciting tumour removal operation. Sadly, I was coughing too much to go into theatre. I didn't bother going in at all as the day before I coughed in PICU and was sent home too.

Instead of going to the hospital, I phoned home, and enjoyed confusing my parents with the time zones. This bit went entirely to plan.

The second not-to-plan bit occurred a couple of hours after, when I locked myself out of my accommodation with no suncream, no lunch, no camera, and no friends. I only had a phone, $10, and three hours to kill until I could meet the others. This did mean I got to have cake in the park for lunch, though.

After wandering aimlessly around Auckland for three hours, the group met up and went to the Sky Tower. That is the pointy thing that dominates the seven million photos of the Auckland skyline I have taken.

Opened in 1997, the Sky Tower stands at 328m tall, making it the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere. During construction three GPS satellites were used to ensure it remained exactly upright, and it can withstand earthquakes measuring over 8 on the Richter scale. It is kitted out with millions of LED's, and often provides different colour schemes for special events, e.g. red and green for Christmas, pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, gold for NZ Olympians.

The ticket for the Tower provided several more facts, the most useful of which are:

• Sky Tower is as tall as 37 buses laid end-to-end.
• It weighs the same as 6,000 elephants.

My question is: are they African or Indian elephants?

So, after the rather terrifying lift (there was a window in the floor) to the Main Observation Deck at 186m, we got our first breathtaking views across the whole of Auckland. It was a gorgeous day with barely a cloud in sight, so we were able to see 52 miles in every direction.

We were also able to see zero miles in every direction, thanks to the glass windows helpfully built into the floor. Even the boys had to hold onto the handrails when venturing out onto the glass.

Here is a picture of my feet:

Every 15mins a crazy person jumps off the Tower. It's probably the only time you can stand on a tall building egging some bloke on to jump. Here is one such crazy person:

Mental.

We also went up to the Sky Deck, which is at 220m. Not a great lot of difference in views, really, so I won't bother showing you anymore pictures of that.

After going back down in the terrifying lift, we headed home for my birthday tea. This involved exciting takeaway that we had heard all about. It was from a place called 'Hell', which produces pizzas called things like 'Mischief', 'Lust', 'Sinister', 'Damned', and 'Mordor'. It also gave the option of having a lamb shank with mash and gravy as a side dish. We did.

The pizzas were very exciting. Mine had onions, spinach, mushrooms, avacado, cashew nuts and camembert. H's had refried beans, and E's was made with seafood sauce instead of tomato! We also got a dessert pizza covered in berries and custard, and were given a free portion of 'Hell Crossed Buns', which have a pentagram on top instead of the traditional cross. They also had the tagline 'For a limited time only. A bit like Jesus.'

Overall, it was a good birthday, and I was in bed by 10:30pm. My bones were a bit creaky by then.