Birthday!

Well, here it is again (at least in New Zealand): April 7th. The day of my birth. I'm 23 now! Not entirely sure if I like it yet, but I'll have to wear it around for a bit before I decide if it fits. On the bright side, now I can listen to "What's My Age Again?" by Blink-182 and feel totally awesome. There's something great about listening to songs that talk about being your age. Next year I have "24" by Switchfoot to look forward to. Yay!

This is also my last day in Wellington, so here's a couple of things that I've been seeing/thinking/doing:
-There's this homeless guy who sits on the corner one block from my hostel, and after seeing him there every day, sometimes several times, while I walk from one place to another, I started having this urge to do something for him. He wasn't asking for anything. He's always just sitting, or sometimes sleeping, rolled up in a tattered blanket. For two or three days I just thought about what I could give him, and after rejecting a whole bunch of ideas I realized I had an extra small blanket and pillow that I'd bought while I was at PM Shearing that I didn't really need anymore. So yesterday I rolled them up and brought them with when I went for a walk, and when I got to his corner he was sleeping (which was great for me, as I was nervous about what I'd say to him). So I just set them next to him, and later on that day I saw him snuggled up with them in his usual spot. It made me feel pretty awesome. Now I smile every time I see him.
-I've had some pretty bad homesickness today. I actually counted how many days it would take me to go straight through the rest of the Stray tour back to Auckland and then go home. On the one hand, I'm frustrated with myself for wanting to leave only two months after getting here, but I miss home, and I think it's partly because I'm living like I'm on vacation. If I was living like this was every-day life (watching my spending more carefully, working all the time, having a set schedule) then I don't think it would be as exhausting. Or, not so much exhausting as...I'm not sure. But I feel like I want to go home. The only thing that's keeping me here is that there's still so much I want to see. But guys, I hope too many people aren't disappointed in me if I come back in another two months or so. Is four to six months a respectable amount of time to be gone when my visa's for a year? I feel like not taking the whole time would be wasteful.
-I really like Wellington as a city. It's surrounded by water, and it's got lots of green space, and it's very hilly, like San Francisco or Edinburgh. It doesn't make you feel closed in, like other cities I've been in. I could live here for a while if I wasn't so rarin' to get down to the South Island.
-I realized while I was on the Lord of the Rings tour the other day (yes, pictures are coming, but the internet's so slow here it takes forever to upload, so I'm waiting!) that I'm at my happiest when I'm out in the woods. My one shining moment of pure joy that I've been holding on to lately is the day I went for a hike in National Park near Taupo. It was a perfect day, and I had music and a pack and my boots, and I roamed through the woods for five hours, saw an amazing waterfall, and came back exhausted to a bowl of noodles and a hammock. When I was out with the LOTR tour we went to a wooded area where they shot Rivendel and I wandered around a bit and felt that same happiness. I've heard that you should follow those feelings, because they're usually telling you something, like what you should be doing. So I'm trying to listen. But mostly I just want that feeling again. It's right up there with being in love.

So, there are a couple of things for now. I'll be posting pictures and more travel updates soon!