11. Christmas Day at Bondi Beach!

It's an absolutely perfect, beautiful day! After all that rain, we have a clear, sunny Christmas Day. Temps in the 70's, light breeze, it's wonderful. I picked up the picnic lunch the hotel chef had prepared, and it was way, way too much food! We will be enjoying the three bricks of cheese, salads, sandwiches, deserts, drinks throughout our stay in Sydney. Thank goodness the room has a fridge! They even included suncreen, lotion, and bug spray!

We packed up a couple of the sandwiches, a greek salad and a very substantial fruit salad, some cookies and brownies, and a couple of diet sodas and fizzy waters for our beach picnic. We included the sunscreen and bug spray, our hats, our multi-purpose beach sarongs (they've been blankets on the planes and trains -- they'll be beach towels today!), and paperbacks and headed out! We took a city bus round trip - what a great deal, convenient and cheap.

We arrived at the beach at about 10:30 -- it was busy, but not overly crowded. We had been advised by many, many people to go early! and that worked just fine. We picked a nice spot near the center of the beach and settled in for the day.

Kevin Mallen, Lindsay's friend from high school, has been living and studying in Sydney for most of the last year. He met us at the beach and tried to teach Lindsay to surf! Ha!

Later, the surfing santas came by... many people were wearing santa hats and other holiday gear on the beach. Great people-watching!

We stayed until we had had enough sun. The beach had really filled up -- it seems to be the place to be on Christmas in Sydney!

A quick bus ride back to the hotel... we picked up a few pops and breakfast items and headed back to our room. We were so happy to get a shower and to have a cocktail and some cheese to toast the holiday!

Kevin will be by later to give us a little tour of the downtown area and have dinner.

A wonderful Christmas in Sydney!