A Weekend in the City and at the Beach

This past week was very relaxing, since it was the first week of classes so we didn't have to attend any of the tutorials for the courses, only the lectures. Because of the canceled classes on Wednesday due to the flooding, I only had 3 classes all week. It was a pretty boring week since I didn't have any homework to work on and it was raining constantly. So far I really like the 3 courses that I did have though. On Saturday there was finally a break in the rain, so a few of my new friends and I went into Cairns city for the day. We walked around all day and went into some touristy shops to get souvenirs for our friends and family, but I really tried to get away from all of the touristy stuff. People back home will love a lot of the more touristy items that say "Australia" on them and such, but for my own souvenirs I want to get some things that are a little more meaningful. The actual city of Cairns is very pleasing to the eyes and also very tropical, with palm trees and pretty flowers all over. The rain forest kind of comes down to meet the city in places and we saw a tree full of flying foxes (which are basically really big bats).
After we did some shopping, we walked down to the esplanade, where there is a big artificial lagoon for public swimming, since there is no beach because the reef blocks a lot of the water from getting to the bay that Cairns is built around. There are enough beautiful beaches around Cairns to make up for it though. The sun was still out on Sunday, so we decided to take the bus down to Palm Cove again. The stinger nets had been taken down because of the flooding, so we weren't able to swim...but I had a very nice time just lying on the beach and listening to the waves hit the shore. I actually have a full week of classes ahead of me, so I am sure that I will have more to write later on...and I am also planning on going to the Cairns Tropical Zoo next weekend...so I will write about that too!