Anyhow, I still love Sydney. It's a fantastic place, from its ultra modern high rise business district, the Harbour with the Opera House and Bridge, to the laid back atmosphere of the the beaches, Sydney seems to have everything.

I'm now living in a house in the Pyrmont area of the City. Pyrmont seems a pretty cool place with bars, pubs and cafes, all within a 10 minute walk to the centre of town and a 5 minute stroll to Darling Harbour. The house is a fairly large terrace, which, with fairly careful juggling of beds, manages to sleep 12 (sometimes more if people are put up on sofas!!) with a complete mix of Brits, Irish and Canadians. All in all everyone gets on well and the bonus is that the rent is very cheap for such a good location.

Darling Harbour is an amazing complex of an Imax Cinema, a Convention Centre, Sega World and all the most fashionable restaurants, cafes and clubs in Sydney all set around a stunning harbour and parks. It will also be the venue of various Olympic sports, such Judo, Boxing etc. Every weekend it holds 'cultural' events which everyone in Sydney seems to flock to, since being here I've been to a Jazz Festival (nice!!), and "the longest buffet in the world" food festival (hhhmmm, ideal hangover cure!!)

There is tonnes of work in Sydney at the moment, so I'm able to be pretty choosy as to what I do, and how much I get paid (compared to London the pay is pretty poor, but the dollar goes further than the pound!!!). From all I can gather, if you have any type of IT skills or come from an IT background you will land a job pretty quickly. The working environment here is much more relaxed, compared to London, which really reflects the overall attitude towards life that Australians seem to have.

Of course the Olympics is much in discussion, and Sydney is buzzing. There seems to be various views being expressed, from how this will be the best games ever, to, it will be a total disaster both for Sydney and Australia. There have already been some mistakes ranging from ticket machines that are unable to accept the official tickets, to the digging up of Bondi Beach for the beach volleyball which has caused direct action and mass demonstrations by the local population.

I'm not sure how I see it yet, but it is hard to imagine how Sydney is going to cope with the estimated 4 million extra people who are said to be coming, roads are already clogged and the public transport stretched, so it should be interesting. From what I gather, most businesses are slowing down during the period of the games as they don't know how employees will manage to get into work.

It also seems that many of the locals will be leaving Sydney to visit relatives or just to get away from the influx of tourists. I still have not decided, but I think I may stay for the first week before heading off.

I hope everyone is having good weather in the northern hemisphere. Of course it's mid-winter here (shortest day yesterday), although to be quite honest I've been amazed at how warm it's been. Apart from some cold nights and mornings the weather is pretty good, with mainly blue skies and surprisingly warm temperatures. Despite this, locals complain about how chilly it is (and it's us who are known as whinging Poms!!).