Anticipated Highlights:

• Sydney: I hate to give such short shrift to Melbourne and then wax eloquently about Sydney, but the fact is that Sydney sucks up half the PR for the whole country for a variety of good reasons. The Opera House, The Sydney Harbor Bridge, The Rocks (Australia’s Plymouth Rock), a half dozen great museums, Biondi Beach, the ferries, Aquarium, National Park and more. Peter Cary’s book, 30 Days in Sydney, coupled with huge sections in each of the tour books, have me looking forward to spending as much time in this last city of the first third of the RAAUST.

• “You cannot expect a curious tourist to understand that this language contains the secrets of our history, but this was the discourse of a nation which began its life without a bourgeoisie, whose first citizens learned the polite mode of conversations from police reports… In 1958 the Englishman J.D. Pringle, in his patronizing but insightful Australian Accent, made the following useful observation of Australians: they are inclined to assume that being polite is to be servile.” Carey
  
  What can this mean? At least I already know enough to ride in the FRONT seat of a taxi-cab.