I'm telling you - it must be the most beautiful place on earth. I couldn't tell if God placed it here as an afterthought - with all the most beautiful leftovers of creation joining into one, or if it was placed here first - with the most exquisite creations forming it and the rest of the world being the afterthought.

New Zealand is so GREEN, so vibrantly full of life. The landscape never gets boring - it's always changing from rolling hills crawling with sheep (there are many times as many sheep as people in NZ) - to jagged, snowy mountain ledges - to rivers of water so clear that you can get on your knees and drink it right there - to rainforests filled with both evergreens and deciduous trees.

Jenna and I went to Nelson, which is a city at the tip of the south island, for five days. Our first night was spent in the Christchurch airport, sleeping on the floor in a corner of an arcade in the international section. I awoke to a little boy playing the arcade game right above my head. Creepy.

But then we spent a few days in Nelson with grandparents of one of my friends from home. They were very welcoming and we enjoyed tons and tons of fresh fruit and extremely soft beds, which were amazing. And the ice cream! Oh man, best thing I've ever tasted... they took ice cream and fresh fruit and blended it together into soft serve and it was INCREDIBLE!!!! I think I could eat it every day of my life.

We went for a walk in the rainforest, following a clear stream into where it stemmed from - flowing out of an underground cave. I only wish we could have jumped in and swam into the cave, but it was too cold. The best part of the walk - besides enjoying the beauty - was that there are no snakes in NZ. The people we were staying with said there are no indigenous animals there besides birds. So we didn't have to worry about being poisoned by anything (that was a nice break from worry, since in Australia I'm always worried about being eaten alive. Jenna says Australia is like a Jurassic Park film).

The next day we went on a boat ride around the NZ shoreline, which was gorgeous. We saw sea lions and tons of birds. The coast is gorgeous - instead of huge beaches, you will see little deserted strips of sand, but mostly moutains practically breathing they are so green with life, the forests held up by a foundation of picturesque rocks. It is so gorgeous. Seriously I felt like I was in a movie or some kind of paradise.

There is some major tidal action in NZ - the tides come in and out drastically and quickly. We saw several huge areas, probably at least 1 km, that were part of the ocean one minute, and a few hours later were completely empty of water and filled with tractors dragging boats out to sea. Pretty crazy.

We went for a drive in the mountains and stopped to watch some rock climbers. Then Jenna and I climbed through the bottom of a big rock and climbed out over some more rocks and into the sea. We had run out of batteries so I didn't get any pictures to explain what I mean, but we felt brave, and that's what counts. :)

We also went to a spring coming up into a long river. The grandma we stayed with got down on her knees and drank from the river, that's how pure and clean the water is.Sunday morning Jenna and I both got to share a little at the church we went to (since the grandpa was the pastor) and then I got to play a song I wrote. I love doing stuff like that!! :) ... I think that means that in every country I've been to so far I've either preached or played a song I wrote. Woohoo! :)

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Back in Toowoomba...I have never been to court in my life, right? But when I go to Australia, I get to go to court! So funny!

We were going to bring our cameras in, but apparently you're not allowed to do that, and security was not too happy we tried. They were like, "Why do you have cameras???" And Josh was like, "Tourists," and rolled his eyes.

Remember the accident we had on Tabletop that I wrote about before - where we almost rolled off the cliff - back in August? Well Josh had to go to court for that, so I was one of the witnesses. Best day of my life! Okay not really the VERY best, but it was probably in my top twenty days ever.

Josh came out to get me to come in and I was like, "YES! I'm so excited!!" And he said the judge heard me hahahaha. I couldn't stop grinning, it was sooo fun!! What a great story! "I've never been to court in my life, but I got to go to an Australian court."

When I told my brother, he incredulously asked why I was in court. I told him I had witnessed a murder. Ha! He believed me too! Great story. I should tell people that. It's a little more exciting than being a witness for a small claims car accident case.

After the court date we went to the dam to see how little water there is in Toowoomba. I think they said it's like at 13% of its capacity or something. And as we were exploring I stepped in a swamp and my foot got sucked up and I almost lost my favorite shoe!! The guys were laughing so hard they sounded like monkeys. Thanks a lot, guys. :P

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One other story for yas. Since we came to Australia, Jenna, Amanda, and I have been planning to dress up in all black and run around campus taking pictures late at night. So we finally did it! We dressed up all ghetto and had a mission - to get across campus without anyone seeing us. We painted our faces and everything. It was great fun, but security saw us! We snuck to the center of campus - and I'm talking crawled and rolled and scurried - and were sitting there triumphant at the fact that no one had seen us, and then realized that we were sitting right in the light and security was staring at us from across the quad. We ran!! I thought they were scared of us - we looked so suspicious. My brother said we prolly just looked like a bunch of idiots. I prefer to think we looked suspicious.

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Anyway. That's all for now! Only 11 days til I come home. Crazy! It's going to be great to see everyone again, but I already am close to tears thinking about leaving. It's so bittersweet. Ah well. I'm excited for all the future holds... there are so many places I could go from here...