We're tourists. Deal with it.

Bondi Beach!

I love it. Australia's most famous strip of sand (or so the introduction to "Bondi Rescue" says). My guess is that it's extremely touristy to go straight to Bondi on your vacation to Sydney. If you remember, it was one of the first things I did upon my arrival here. While a tourist, do as tourists do. That's how G and Christina felt and I completely agreed. It was important that they make the most out of their stay. So this was our Bondi Beach day.

We got a very early start. I was sitting on the train to Bondi Junction thinking how on a normal beach day, I'd still be laying in bed contemplating movement. That's one good thing about having G around. He's always up and ready to go. And he'd bought a sweet boomerang while we were at Paddy's Market so we were ready to whip that thing around on the sand. As the wheels on the bus went round, Bondi Beach came into view. I was stunned to see that there was nobody on the beach. Nobody. The previous few times I'd been there, I'd laid within a few inches of a half naked stranger. But as if the gods were saying "give that boomerang a throw" all we saw was never-ending sand. 

The first few boomerang throws were nothing short of pathetic. It was the least athletic I've ever felt as I watched the boomerang sink directly into the sand without any cool flight pattern. We discovered our problem. We weren't throwing hard enough. But there was literally no one there so I took the liberty of trying the first really hard throw. I chucked it close to my hardest and saw that it behaved as you would expect a boomerang to behave. It flew so far and started swinging back around, but still fell well short of coming all the way back. We saw there was no way to control this thing and thought it would be good to put it away so nobody steps in front of it and takes one in the neck. It seemed like a solid minute after we put the boomerang away when a life guard came over to scold us. 

"No boomerangs on the beach guys...Too dangerous...You nearly hit that woman...Go up by the park"

It was no use arguing with the guy. There was no camera crew with him and therefore no hope of being featured on "Bondi Rescue". Though, I have seen stupider stuff on that show than the scolding of boomerang throwers. We just laughed at him after he'd left instead. It was our fault though. We should know better than to aim our throws at imaginary women.

Boomerang throwers beware

Our attention shifted to the water.  We commented on how small the waves looked until we got in the there. After about 30 minutes of swimming/body surfing, we agreed that we felt like we'd lost a fight against mother nature. The waves were huge and we caught a couple of them all the way into the shore. We chilled for a while and discovered some interesting tan lines (Christina), but it was food time. We ate kebabs, something it seems like I've been doing a few times a day since getting here. Delicious. Normally I get chicken, but the lamb was calling my name on this day. Mmmm. I just realized I'm getting one after I type this up. No, I have sandwich stuff to use up. Damn.

The beach drained us, but we had plans for the evening that we couldn't pass on. At the aquarium, we bought passes that also allowed us access to the lifts to the top of Sydney Tower. That's the big, tall, gold, spire thing in downtown Sydney. It's the tallest building in the city, standing at 309 meters (1,014 feet). That's where Anthony, Christina, Emily, and myself headed. It was about a 20 minute elevator ride but we finally made it. I took a solid amount of pictures up there. A lot of the them were of shiny white nothing as I forgot to turn the flash off 70% of the time. Even the other ones were nothing special. The real treat was just looking out at the entire city. Oh, and we got photo booth pictures taken. I somehow came out of the experience hating photo booths. Emily went back up to the tower since that night so the day time pictures are completely stolen from her. Check it.

^Darling Harbour^

^My favorite buildling in Sydney^

^$10 American to whoever finds the Opera House in this one^

^St. Mary's Cathedral^

^ANZ (Olympic Park) Stadium^

I love kangaroos.

On this night, I found out that I also like to eat them. The four of us headed to dinner after the tower. It was Wolfie's Grill that provided me with the chance to eat both kangaroo and crocodile for the first time. I know kangaroos are seen as some sort of sacred animal here and they're on the national coat of arms and blah blah. But since there are 50 million of them throughout Australia, more than double the human population, I felt no shame in devouring just a portion of one. And eating crocodile is fair game in my mind. I just get a bad vibe from them. Doesn't it seem like they just deserve to be eaten?

Me with a friendly kangaroo

Me with a delicious kangaroo

Don't worry the picture of me eating was taken first so it definitely wasn't the same kangaroo. Anthony and I both got the kangaroo and crocodile plate while the girls went with extremely boring alternatives. Typical. The kangaroo is the one that looks like your average steak. To a certain extent, thats what it was. It was delicious nonetheless. The crocodile was an interesting thing to eat. I'd say the texture was a combination of fish and chicken. But the taste was something of it's own. Thank god because fish is absolutely disgusting. I think I'd rather eat human. But ignore that and just know that the croc definitely satisfied my taste buds. Just as we planned, the bottle of wine that we ordered was never brought out. We had to ask for it again and finally,  just as we were about finishing our meals, we got it. I feel like waiters think it's a joke when young people ask for a decent bottle of wine. Our guy must have laughed and ignored the request. Anyways we had a good day and a good night. Their visit is going well so far don't you think?