The things they do are awful cold... I hope I die before I get old

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Greetings friends and loved ones!

Well, Matt and I are wrapping things up here in Auckland. We plan on leaving on Monday to head down to Wellington to meet up with Martin and Tobias, two Germans we are friends with. Martin is the dude from Greenpeace whose flat we moved into. Tobias is his friend. They bought a car (for a whopping $400 Kiwi... that's about $275 American) that they plan on touring the South island with. We hope to hitch a ride until they leave the country and then possibly purchase the car from them (if it's still running...)

We are almost done with Kiwi Experience and have earned the Rangi pass, so we'll be doing that at some point also. I'm not sure when, but probably after we spend some time with the Germans.

The Esperanza came to port in Auckland on Tuesday and we went to greet the crew as they debarked from a year long expedition around the world. They will be leaving in a couple of weeks to head down to the Southern oceans to attempt to thwart the fleet of whaling ships that the Fisheries Agency of Japan has sent out (in an attempt to kill about 1,000 Minki whales...) We did a Haka to greet them and ended getting on three national NZ news channels as well as one from Australia. It was pretty sweet and made this week easier going to door to door. A lot of people mentioned that they saw me on the news report about the ship ("Hey, were you on TV last night?") This weekend I'll be working on the ship giving tours and talking about the GP campaigns. I'm really stoked. I'm thinking about trying to work on the boat someday (although it is rather difficult and mostly based on luck; right place, right time type of deal. But I think it would be really sweet to spend a year on the high seas going all over the world working to protect the environment!)

That reminds me, have you joined Greenpeace yet? Cause you need to. Climate change is real and if we don't do something soon, it'll be too late. Check out Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and then do something about it! Switch to clean energy, reduce your power consumption, don't fill up at ExxonMobull (their gas is worse for the environment than other companies), and together we can make a change. A snowflake by itself will melt in the sun, but when all the snowflakes get together we can start an avalanche.

Enough preaching. But, seriously, do something!

I don't have too many big plans for my 23rd birthday, unless you count sitting on a train for 12 hours a plan... I think that some of my Greenpeace family are going to come out and celebrate on Saturday night, including Christine, the American lady who had the Thanksgiving Day supper for us and has since decided to "adopt" Matt and I and calls us her sons. We call her mom. I like my real mom better. But she is buying me a present, so that will be sweet as.

Other than that, life is life and time is flying. I love you all and miss you more and more daily.

Please keep Matt and I in your prayers, especially as we begin travelling again. God's been doing some painful but good work in my life (you know, just slapping me around until I pay attention. I needed a good God beating...)

Ta for now,

Dan

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