Bondi - Try it again

WOW this is the third time that I am going to try and write about my experience in Bondi last Sunday. Rough to type the same thing 3 times but the masses that read this must know what happened...simply must. Yeah so I am in Byron Bay now. It's about 8-10 hours north of Sydney and is where our favorite former Miami Dolphin Ricky Williams hung out for 6 months or so. I think I actually have the same camp site as him!!!!!

Anyway so Sunday in Bondi was gorgeous. I wake up at my A$24 dorm room with this dude from tha NYC and have a view of the beach. Already kickin at 8am mind you. Yeah I get up early, I rock. So John and I have a date to play chess on the beach at 11 so I go shower and then sit on the beach to enjoy the surf and the views. For us Americans its quite odd in that I think all other beaches in the world are topless beaches. Not that I was looking but this phenomena is everywhere. So I wait till 11 hoping to find John who also happened to quit AIG to come traveling. Simply amazing the people that you find on the road. Jack Kerouac for yall suckers. Yeah so he left a proper AIG job in the city to travel round the world and is one of the few (3 as of now) Americans that I have met. Anyway this a-hole doesn't show up so I decide to take the beach walk down to Coogee, about 6km south. The temp is about 28 degrees (Celsius of course; which I can't convert) and sunny. So I take this beach walk with the beautiful cliffs falling into the deep blue Pacific. Marvelous. I think the Incredibles would have even liked it. Yeah so I walk through a beach called Marabba (I don't really think that's it but I like to make up Australian names) and it was alright and then I get to Bronte the home of the first surf club (estd 1903) and it was quite nice. At this point my foot was hurting from walking about 100 miles around Sydney the past 2 days so I decide to hang out in Bronte for awhile. Lots of Speedos with Bronte written on the back. A little aside - Australians are crazy healthy or at least love their sports. There are people running, surfing, ocean swimming, throwing the rugby ball, tennis, everything. Amazing. Now I have seen more of them and I think Sydney is just kind of a city for show offs but still it's quite interesting. So I grab lunch and hang out for a bit before making the walk back but this place rocks. Better than Bondi in my opinion even if Jack Johnson sings about it. Bondi is nice just doesn't live up to my preconceived notion.

So I get back sit on the beach and read and watch the colors of the sun going down even though it is behind me. Go shower and then off to find some food. I hear from my hostel compatriots there is a killer pizza/pasta place about a block away so I go check it out. Seems quite popular since you can't even get in the door but I finally make my order and then decide to go buy a nip of wine. Find a decently cheap .5L box and make my way back for the pizza. Mel Gibson ate at this place I am told but I don't think he had to wait this long. He was probably making Waterworld or something. Yeah so I order the seafood pie which consists of prawns, mussels, anchovies, and garlic. I decide on this since I have no gum or breath freshener for later and everyone loves those smells. About an hour and a half later my pizza is ready and my stomach is eating itself but the wait only makes it better. I think this may have been the best pizza ever or it could have been that I didn't eat much that day and I had to endure the delicious aromas of the place for over an hour. So I take my pizza and wine to the beach and had a fantastic meal looking at the breaking surf (waves only about 1 meter here - quite small), moon, and stars.

The night before I was at a hotel (that's what they call bars whether they have accommodation or not) watching Super 12's. That's the worldwide (?) rugby league and a game that I don't understand. Anyway I am sitting outside on the bench watching the world go by, philosophizing on life, travel, love, happiness, etc when this drunk dude Ali comes up and sits down. Smokes a cigarette and we get in a yarn about his stunt guy job. Needless to say he's not really a stunt guy and really works at W Hotel in Cornwall (England) which I find out after all his other friends show up. Nat, a true Sydneysider is with them and invites me back to her flat to hang out. So these Cornwallers (3 of them now) are wasted and don't really like me being there but it's all good and I good naturedly let them take a rib out. Nat's flatmate Justin is a pro surfer and offers to take me out the next day and make room for me in the middle of all the locals. The beach that day was insane. You couldn't move a meter without bumping into someone and the water was worse. The beach is only a little over a kilometer long but probably had 200 surfers, 200 body boarders, 500 bathers, and hundreds more on the beach. Crazy. They love their water. Yeah so I can't take him up on the offer because I am to get on the bus the next morning at 7am but he's a good guy. Nat works at W too and Tony Hawk is a good mate of her's after he shot a movie down here. Going to stay in his house this summer, quite jealous. Anyway these guys are drunk calling me Mr Incredible and Buzz Lightyear and it is recommended that I leave before they get too pissed (drunk). When I am leaving Nat tells me this is the worst Southy she's ever seen. Apparently this is a south wind with rain. It's a nasty walk home like the weather guys you see on TV in a hurricane. Maybe not that bad but I had to lean into the wind. Hit the sack about 3am and have to get up at 5:45 for a bus north. Quite a night, which amazingly they all turn out to be. Backpackers are an interesting sort always have a lot to talk about and are usually quite clever.

So I'm in Byron now and will try to write about that later if this post works.