Bondi

Trip Start Dec 31, 2008
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25
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Trip End Mar 27, 2009


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Flag of Australia  , New South Wales,
Saturday, February 21, 2009

Friday was a bit of a day of rest for us.  Ryan's had two buddies from Michigan arrive in the morning, and they took off for Bondi, where we were to meet them later.  We went down to Bondi Beach around noon, grabbed some lunch, and then hit the beach for about three hours.  The waves were good and the beach was active, though not swamped with crowds, which is good.  Because of the strong tide, you could only swim in a fairly limited area, but it was big enough for us.  I advised my siblings to slather on the sunscreen, which they wisely and obediently listened to.  After returning from the beach, all I heard from Courtney was how she didn't get any sun (I thought she had).  I told her that if she sat out there without sunscreen, she'd fry quickly, which would prove to be somewhat prophetic. 
I received a text from Jana Unterberg, a German girl whose older brother Tobias had been an exchange student at Russia High School in my sister's class. She then also studied on exchange in Russia two years after I graduated.  My brother Andy knew her, ( I think I had previously met her once, perhaps), so when Tobias had seen on Facebook that Courtney and Andy were coming to visit, he told them that Jana was going to be in Sydney.  Andy sent her an email with my phone number, she texted me, and so she decided to meet up with us. 
Andy, Courtney and I went down to FringeBar for some dinner and happy hour drinks, and Jana and a Kiwi girl she had met traveling named Tonya met up with us.  After having a few drinks, Tonya took off and the four of us headed to The Ivy, which is sort of the see-and-be-seen place to be in downtown Sydney.  We were only going there because that's where Ryan was taking his friends- it is too crowded for me and is not really my scene, but the crowd there is undoubtedly attractive, and thus, we dressed up a bit.  When we arrived, the line was really fairly long.  After standing for a couple of minutes and with still quite a bit of line remaining, a bouncer walking down the line stopped and asked me if it was just the two of us while signaling to Courtney and I.  I responded that it was the four of us, pointing to Andy and Jana as well.  After doing a quick once-over, the bouncer opened up the line for just us four and let us in ahead of the remaining line.  I've never seen Courtney more thrilled (or perhaps validated) in my life.  This has not been my typical experience in Sydney- we've been turned away from a number of clubs for not having any girls with us previously, but it is always nice to be made to feel important.   We simply stayed at Ivy the rest of the night and met up with Ryan and his friends there, then returned home fairly late after dropping Jana off at her hostel.  Tomorrow we were headed to Cairns. 
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