Sydney

After a great four days with Jono at his place, I went just a few minutes down the road to Jeff's apartment, set right on the southern tip of Bondi Beach. I met Jeff, from Dallas, while in Prague with J.D. in May of 2006. Me and J.D were walking out of a club when we saw a group of American guys waiting in a long line. We told them not to bother going in, as the place was filled with dudes, and we kept on walking. The following night we ran into the same group of guys and ended up hanging with them the next three nights. Over the years, Jeff and I kept in touch, mostly exchanging stories about our travels. He spent a couple of years working in London as a tax consultant and then returned back to Dallas for a little bit. Just before I left for Thailand, he drove up from Dallas to hang out when I went down to Austin, and he told me that his company was transferring him to Sydney shortly after that. So, the moral of the story is... keep in touch with people, because you never know when you're going to cross paths again. I met a guy outside of a random club in a random European city, and now I am sitting on the couch in his apartment, overlooking the waves crashing on Bondi Beach.

Sydney has been pretty cool so far. After a fun weekend of going out and getting to know the city's nightlife, I started the sightseeing on Monday. Jeff took off from work and we started out with the basic walking tour, visiting some memorials and historic sights. The architecture of the city is quite fascinating. After cruising through a large botanical garden we saw the world famous Sydney Opera House.

Today I took some buses and trains across the city to get to Darling Harbour, another iconic Sydney site. The Harbour is mostly surrounded by expensive hotels and restaurants, but back in the day it was home to numerous industrial factories. It was really nice to walk around and watch everyone sitting around the Harbour, enjoying the nice weather with a book, some on their lunch break, or just sitting. I figure I'll do a day or two more of site seeing before I start the surfing. I know once I get on the board I'm not gonna get off, which is why I am knocking out all the site seeing first. The weather here is warm, but it is not beach weather anymore. The majority of people left on Bondi are surfers, as it cools down at night enough for a longsleeve shirt.