Australia

So I've now been in Australia for about a week - though the weather hasn't been great (in the 50s and rainy for most of the time) I've been having a good time. Sydney is a beautiful city, especially around the harbor areas. The Sydney harbor with the opera house and the harbor bridge is truly spectacular. Overall, the people are friendly, the city is clean, and there's a decent amount of stuff to do. My only real complaint is that it is one of the more expensive places I've been. Not as bad as London but worse than just about everywhere else. Now we are up at a really nice bed and breakfast in the rain forest outside of Cairns. Haven't done anything here yet but should be going for a hike today and probably doing some other rain forest-y stuff. In a couple days we're going to the Barrier Reef to snorkel and I think we're also hitting up Ayer's Rock sometime next week before some of us head off to New Zealand and Fiji. Anyways, I brought a bunch of movies and TV shows (including Deadwood and Heroes, both of which I really want to watch) but haven't had a chance to watch any yet. I've actually been able to sleep through most of the flights, so I suppose that's a good thing. The one review that should be upcoming is of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I have about 100 pages left and will hopefully finish it tonight. So far I really like it, though I'm not sure I "get" everything that's going on.