Bondi Beach

Friday 10th December - Monday 13th December 2010

"Tatties int' Trailer!"

Me again!

Forgot to mention in the last blog that the Greyhound bus that took us to Sydney from Port Macquarie was actually broken! The air conditioning worked but the heating was stuck ON! It was a boiling hot day and the heating was blasting out of the vents! Everyone was bright red and sweating and complaining! It was horrendous but luckily it wasn't too long to suffer, only seven hours! We drove through Pymble (the suburb we are currently staying in) then over the Harbour Bridge into the city. I was really excited about getting to Sydney (in a typical tourist way!) but to be honest at first glance I was slightly disappointed. The Oprah House looks dated and "made in the 80's". It's not bright white and magnificent like it appears on TV or in pictures, it's actually a kind of off white colour with brown trimmings (not sure if that's what they're called, but brown bits anyway!). All of the high rises also look dated and there is nothing much spectacular about it, like there is Tokyo or New York. When we get off the bus, we have to carry our bags to the train station and get on a train to Bondi where we are staying with Jamie and Becky, friends of Joe's from York. At this point, Joe's backpack breaks, to the point where he has to carry it like a small child as its straps that have ripped from the bag! It was very funny but totally inconvenient when you are rushing on and off busy trains. Sydney has a system similar to the tube but they are just called trains, genius. We eventually get to Becky and Jamie's flat just off Bondi Road and immediately shower so they don't think that we are always sweaty humans with dirty feet! I made Joe deal with his toe nails as he was starting to look like Wolverine. The flat is lush with a sea view of Bondi Bay!

When we resembled humans again, we walked to Bondi Road, a long street of shops and bars and restaurants on the way to the beach. Bondi is much bigger than I expected, it also has a huge town centre with a massive shopping mall, and it's almost like a city centre. But we just walked around the corner to find some food. At first I was quite unimpressed with the street, it was a little rough with pretty average shops and we didn't find anywhere where we would eat! But we kept walking and ended up at the beach. The infamous Bondi Beach and it is no where near as tacky as I had been told it was. It's nothing like Blackpool; it's a cute sea side town with loads of cool people and cool things to do. We found a restaurant called "Trattoria" right on the front looking out over the bay and had the nicest Italian food we've ever had! We then went back and had a few beer with Jamie (Becky was on her Christmas do and called to tell us she was getting her face painted!) and got the news that Becky's brother's girlfriend was in labour! Becky's nephew and Joe's mate's baby was born the next morning, George Thomas Howcroft.

We had breakfast in the morning on the BBQ and walked down the hilly streets to the beach. On the way was another quirky street, full of lush boutiques and cafes and bars. I like the fell of this place, it's really lively! There are however, the typical pretentious posers you associate with this kind of "cool, trendy place". There are model-like girls in full lycra power walking their way through the streets and along the beach and muscle-clad men with their tops off and aviators strutting after them! The beach is rammed and normally I HATE busy beaches but we can't help but like this one. We are entertained by the "body beautifuls" working out on the sand, flexing their pecs and running along the sand while inch-perfect goddesses sunbath near by. But Miami and LA are like this so why can't Bondi be?! The girls are immaculate with Spanish skin and blonde hair and all the men have eight-packs meandering around with surf boards under their arms. We can't help but laugh at the clichéd sight but I think we are only laughing in an attempt at self-preservation! If I didn't convince myself they were all stupid, shallow and boring I would be a bulimic within the hour! But instead of developing an eating disorder, we shared a pizza for breakfast! The Italian food here is SO good! People were looking at me like I had three heads but it was a bloody good pizza! We chilled out on the beach, listened to the surf competition and the garage music the speakers were pumping out and worked on our tans! The Bondi Beach Rescue cleared a section of the beach for the helicopter to land. Someone was injured and all the Bondi Rescue cameras were there so look out for it on TV! Joe also saw Hayley from One Tree Hill! And Oprah was dining at the famous "Iceberg" surf club at one end of the beach! There were huge crowds there to see her get in her car and police helicopters everywhere!

That afternoon we met Becky and Jamie for a few drinks at The Rats, the rival surf club to the Iceberg which is at the other end of the beach! Joe was wearing a singlet (vest) so they gave him a comedy shirt to wear! Obviously he loved it and even managed to steal it! God knows why, its bright red with palm trees and margaritas on it! We went back to the house for BBQ and got smashed. Shock! Jamie cooked us burgers (or didn't, as they were raw!) and Joe and Becky got far too excited! Me and Becky were just sat talking and Joe and Jamie snuck off with a passion fruit each, we went to see what they were doing and they were on the balcony throwing the passion fruit at a trailer across the street! They had developed a game of trying to get the fruit in the trailer.So, first it was passion fruit, then kiwi, then Becky wanted part of it, then bananas, then apples, then all the fruit was gone. We were laughing so hard at the sight of the fruit all over the street and at how competitive it got! We didn't realise Becky had sloped off and came back with a bag of onions. The onions went the distance to then Becky declared, "I think we've got tatties!" So the tatties went the distance. At this point Becky got her first projectile in the trailer and hollered, "TATTIE INT TRAILER, TATTIE INT TRAILER!!!" Becky and Joe were doing jumping high fives and Joe got so excited he ran into the living room, lay on his back and grabbed his feet. God knows. Next game the mushrooms. At this point a taxi pulled up and Joe started lobbing mushrooms at the people trying to get in the taxi, shouting, "There's not mush room in that taxi!!!" It all got a bit worrying when Joe launched an onion and hit the crappy yellow car next to the trailer and made the alarm go off! We all dived inside like we were being snipped, giggling our heads off! All of us were mortified that the alarm had gone off but Becky was only mortified about the fact that the rubbish car even HAD an alarm! Ha! When Jamie declared that the reason the alarm had gone off was because the onion had "struck the rear pillion" we all nearly weed ourselves! The what?!

Joe's first sentence in the morning was, "I wonder what ranger Pete is doing?" (The ranger from the camp site on Straddie Island!). We were all pretty rough the next day so went to the beach and chilled out. We pretty much giggled all day and we won "Guests of the Year". We had a class weekend and loved Bondi so will be going back to see Becky and Jamie and maybe taking a bucket of fruit with us for bants!!! Ha!

Love,

Elle and Joe x x x