This is a first in a series called:

“Favorite Places on the Planet.”

BONDI BEACH. SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

There’s a beach-bum in all of us, but it takes that lounge lizard to find just the right hot spots.  A lizard whom seeks only the ultimate in life’s little pleasures. Because that is why we are all here, right?  If not for the pleasure(s) in life, what is there left to seek?

Bondi Beach. Sydney, Australia. 1997. 21 years old and I was a virgin on the travel beat. I’d traveled domestically and within The United States several times in my young years, but I had never traveled internationally, like over the ocean!

Six months in paradise.

I was very young, and very naïve in Australia, I savoured every moment. My mother asked me several times before I set off on this wicked year of excursions “Well, what are you going to do? Where are you going to sleep? How are you going to eat?”

I accomplished all her questions without problem.  I found youth hostels, if at first I had to sleep on the beach (albeit in the early afternoon), I found small jobs in cafe’s or bars for a few weeks at a time then would set off again to travel up the east coast of Australia and again find another little job, even for the weekend.

I imagine it was easier almost fourteen years ago to live and work in another country, with or with out the right paper work.  I lived mostly in youth hostels with six to ten a room. And every morning without fail, over the central announcement system they would call for workers in every position. Carpenters, welders, security, wait staff and fruit pickers.  There was never a lack of work, the chosen were out of bed first, with their names firmly dried on the dotted line for the days chores.

Inside Indys Backpackers Bondi Beach. Australia. 1997. Rm #6

I scored a job for a few weeks right on Bondi. It was a little sandwich and juice shop. There were about eight tables, it was a kitchen-sink type place but it was right on the beach.  I could smell the ocean from work, tiny sand stuck in my toes, bright yellow lemon sun. sigh.

It was paradise and for six months I lived in a room with nine other men.  Nine men! There were mostly The Brits, a few Irish Lads, a South African and me the Canadian girl.  Eegawds is what you’re thinking. Don’t worry Mom, there were other girls there too, twas a co-ed youth-hostel. We had a HUGE living-room with about thirteen sofa’s all arranged differently, there was one big tv and one remote control.

Bondi by Night

It was a brilliant time. In this youth-hostel where I lived out the twenty-second year in life, I threw ironing boards out windows, danced at little tiny seedy clubs in Kings Cross, went topless on the beach for the first time with only a shoe string up me arse, drank my fill of Australia’s finest VB beer, ate vegetarian all the time and fell in love, and lust; one to many times to count. Australia truly remains one of my all time favorite places on the planet and Bondi Beach is now my mental playground.

Bondi Beach is a super place. There are nude surf contests, beach raves, fun toyshops, The Bondi Hotel (where I used to play pool, and drink VB,) cute life guards, twenty-somethings hopping horny all over the place, a fast stop into Sydney, the beach (but I’ve said that already.)

Bondi by Day