Sydney

Hey guys and gals. Well, I'm rested up and rejuvenated in Sydney, Australia at my fav mate Jono's house. I met Jono, along with a couple other people I'm visiting in Sydney, while on my Birthright trip to Israel two summers ago. I haven't done too much sight seeing yet. I rested up all of yesterday and took it easy, then went out to a club with Jono and his girlfriend Sarah, who is from Philly and I also met on the Birthright trip, but now lives and works in Sydney. So prior to hitting the club, I was debriefed on the social differences between Australia and the States:

• No one "grinds" when they dance in Australia.
  

Ya just kind of dance near eachother.

• When you go out, you dress up.

In New York, you have your posh clubs where you dress up and pay crazy cover charges and walk around like an asshole all night with your $18 drinks. But then you also have your bars and small clubs where you can dress however you want and pay for normally priced drinks. But in Sydney, every place is considered "dressy" and there is no such place as a grungy dive bar. So, sport coats and suits are a norm. I wore a crummy button down that was buried deep in my backpack and had to borrow a pair of nice shoes three sizes too big. It was that or risk not getting in.

Jono's house is very interesting. His parents are orthodox Jews, and Jono's grandparents are Holocaust survivors from Poland. They were liberated from Auschwitz and immigrated to Sydney in the late 1940's. As some of you may or may not know, Orthodox Jews do not mix milk and meat products during meals. So in the Jono household, there are seperate sinks, microwaves, silverware, stoves, and table cloths for milk and meat. We had Shabbis dinner last night (the Jewish Sabbath) and had a wonderful mix of Challah bread and hummus.

I love good hummus, especially when there are people involved.

The picture below is from Israel two summers ago. Jono is far left, Warren is in the middle, and Sarah is kind of in the picture far right.