Hello! I thought i'd give you an update on how the birthday celebrations went. It was lovely. Firstly Andrew presented me with a big surprise of cards and presents from my family which i was not expecting at all! Many thanks for those. Early start at about 7am and by 9am, thanks to beautiful clear skies, we were all kitted up to jump onto a helicopter! Sarah, Selina, Andrew and i flew over the gorgeous Franz Josef glacier. The scenery was truly unbelievable. The ride to the top of the glacier lasted about 10 mins. Selina and i were lucky to be sat in the front next to the pilot! We were enjoying it so much the pilot asked us if we wanted to have a bit more fun and he turned it into a rollercoaster ride doing acrobatics over the glacier!! We then landed on the blue ice and got strapped into our clampons and hiked through the ice for 2 hours. This was incredible, it was a geographers paradise up there!! We saw ice caves, very deep crevasses, all sorts of moraine and even squeezed through ice tunnels! We were very close to the fastest part of the glacier that moves at a speed of roughly 5m/day, we even saw rocks and ice falling. We then hopped back onto the helicopter, flew down the glacial valley and back for lunch. many thanks to Sarah, Selina and Tom for making that heli hike happen, awesome birthday present!! The sun had put his hat on for a lovely lunch with birthday cake and a bottle of bubbly from Steve! A few of us then got into swimming gear for a chill out in the hot glacial pools! This was nice going between pools of 36, 38 and 40 deg C. Later on, us girls got into our party frocks and we went with the boys for a delicious curry. We then danced the night away!! It was a fantastic day. I missed family and friends from home but i was really lucky to have awesome friends (and boyfriend!) with me who made it amazing! Sweet as!!!!!!