The setting was Mount Eden; a dormant volcano that lies right in the middle of the city of Auckland, New Zealand. The date was May 3rd; the birthday of my new best friend Eric. I’d been living in Auckland for a little over two months at this point, yet already I was part of a tight-knit group of seven. We were all exchange students, and besides Eric, we were all intimately bonded through the common enemy of our sketchy apartment building. Today that didn’t matter though, beca