On Friday the 24th of October I turned 33 years old. After Katie cooked me my all time favourite breakfast of smoked salmon with scrambled eggs and Tabasco sauce on English muffins it was time for a birthday visit to the Chiropractor! Once he had finished snapping my spine and sorting out my prolapsed disc problem for that day the fun could really begin. We were off to the Antarctic Experience. Katies parents had kindly bought me two tickets to experience complete with "backstage" passes to see behind the scenes in the Penguin rehab unit. We arrived just in time to watch the feeding of the centres 21 blue penguins. The centre had a large view area allowing you to watch the birds swimming underwater and diving for the fish. We later found that the birds have become accustomed to their hand feeding and are very picky about the type of fish that they will eat. Some only like pilchards, some only like sprats and some wait until the picky ones have finished ignoring the ones they don't want and come in and hoover up all the unwanted fish from the bottom. One of these vacuum cleaning penguins we were to meet later and he was called Fats!At 2pm we put on our fluorescent vests denoting that we were "backstage ticket holders" and were taken to meet the penguins face to beak. After a quick tour around the facility it was time to go into the labs to meet Halfpint. Halfpint penguin only had one flipper as he had lost his left one during a collision with a boat propeller. Whilst the keeper told us about the work that they do there at the centre halfpint was free to roam around our feet and soon made a break for the corridor. Next out of the pen was fats who only had one foot. He had been brought down to have a new stump cover fitted made out of a neoprene stubbie holder! With two penguins running around it soon became a little chaotic and it was time for them to go back into their pen. Meeting the penguins face to face was the highlight of my birthday and I would like to thank John and Rita for their present to me.After we got back to the public side of the Antarctic Experience we looked around the rest of the building. We got shut in a huge indoor freezer room full of snow and ice to experience an Antarctic storm. After being given thick coats to protect us the doors were shut and and the fans turned on. This lowered the temperature from its usual -8 degrees C to minus to a wind-chill of minus 18 degrees. Now that was pretty cold but not cold enough to put me off one day experiencing it for real! To warm ourselves up we also took a spin in the Haaglunds explorer vehicle which is an articulated tracked vehicle used to get across the ice at the Polar research Centre. Around the back of the centre they had built an assult course taking in 60 degree hills crevices of 1.5m width and a 3m deep lake. All of which the vehicle easily handled. After a look around the rest of the displays it was time to meet up with Tom and Rachel and head off for our weekend away…