Sunday, December 25, 2005

Merry Christmas To All and To All, 45spf.

Oh, the feeling of a sunburn on Christmas. Despite my previous post about feeling none of the Christmas love that Sydney had to offer, this Bah Humbug has turned full circle and embraced our Southern brethen to come together and celebrate the day of Santa's birth.

It is true, Australians actually believe in Jesus. We've had a fantastic day spent with good friends, fantastic food and unmatched weather. CiCi, Peggy and I started off by awakening with a mad rush of unwrapping presents and then slowing it down a little to enjoy a leisurly coffee cake, with the grow your own Christmas tree glowing merrily in the corner we dusted ourselves off and got ready for the mass of consumption that was to follow.

We joined our friends Rich and Michelle in Chatswood, which is about 20 minutes north of Sydney, we had a Mexican feast that would rival any taco truck's best effort. They prepared a fantastic lunch of ceviche, shrimp, chicken, beef, swordfish, tamales, rice, beans, the list goes on and on and on. The ten people who were lucky enough to attend this Feliz Navidad were all immobilized by the amount put away.

Then it was down to Bondi, where the apocolypse had come in the form of sunscreen and speedos. Never have I seen such a mass of people all on the beach at one point, just spilling out into the ocean. I would guess several thousand, easily, all soaking up the rays and enjoying a day on the sand. There were Santa's everywhere - surfing, scuba diving, boogie boarding, drinking heavily - and all in costume! We had some friends who had a flat that was right on the rocks in North Bondi, luckily a bit away from the crush of humanity, giving us a bit of breathing room and a little perspective as well of what a fantastic experience this has been so far.

Sydney certainly has built on the momentum of the recent heat wave, really getting into the spirit of all things Summer. I was picked up from Uni on the Santa Bus, surprising to see that it was decorated inside and out by a driver (click picture for a little movie) in a Santa costume with carols playing in the background. She had posted some newspaper articles about the bus, which stated that she arrived ninety minutes early every morning to set things up. Not so co-incidentally, I had turned in a revision to my thesis just minutes before this bus picked me up and I started to feel like the holiday season had finally arrived.

We wrapped up our Christmas by going down to Coogee for some Indian / Chinese / Thai / Kebab eating options, given that those were the only restaraunts open on such a day. Coogee is home to an disproportionatly high amount of British and Irish backpackers / bar employees, so as the sun went down, they all qeued up to phone the UK. A normal, non-descript telephone booth on the corner turned into a busy rush to call home. I've been three times unable to dial England tonight, due to the telephone network being overloaded. Many of the colonialist offspring seem to have the same idea as I have, to try and reach out to their motherland. I guess there's always Boxing Day.

posted by ncawthon at 11:55 PM