Sydney & Bondi Beach

I’m really sorry guys, but I can’t hang out in Davis Friday night because I’m leaving for Australia. 

…Wait, what? 

Two weeks ago I was bicycling down Russell Avenue in Davis, simultaneously feeling around in my fuzzy jacket for my ringing cell phone.  Boss called: I have a plane ticket to Australia in two weeks with my name on it. Typical.

So now I’m sitting in an airport terminal in LAX, soaking wet from the rainstorm, wearing jeans, a long sleeve cotton shirt and a hoodie.  Tomorrow, I will wake up in the middle of a humid summer, swap my single pair of jeans for shorts, and will head to Bondi Beach to begin another season of recruiter training. 

Yes, it’s official:  life is absolutely surreal. 

Now, it’s 5:50am and the sun is barely rising – jet lag has gotten the best of me and I’ve woken up every two hours since midnight. Maybe it’s because my mind and body won’t accept that I’m really here. That yesterday I looked out at the Sydney skyline in a sundress, ate banana bread for lunch and watched the sunset from the beach; the freckles and sun spots returning to my hibernating winter skin.

I decided to make the most of my insomnia by going out for a run. Surprisingly, I wasn’t the only one – at a few minutes past 6am, the beach was filled with beautiful people of all ages running, squatting, lunging, sprinting, and doing yoga across the barely lit sand. Along the strip of beach, dozens of tan, toned women in shorts and tank tops were following along with a training instructor, doing planks, dips and bicycle stretches. Clusters of tan, buff men in speedos ran and chatted together along the pavement. Old men in short-shorts gathered around the workout equipment on the grass, taking turns doing sets of 30 pull-ups, and acrobatic leg lifts on the metal bars above the sand. I did a running loop, then jumped into the water and nearly cried – 72 degrees and turquoise with perfectly barreling waves. I’m sorry in advance friends and family, but I might never be willing to leave this place.

It’s been a couple days now and the jet lag is still plaguing me, but I’ve almost come to terms with the fact that I’m really here. I saw Jena last night down at the Harbor, overlooking the Opera house. We wandered through Sydney at night with barely a shrug on, had a beer, and caught up on the last two years of our lives. Nearly four years ago, Jena was my east-coast transplant Craigslist subletor in the Radcliffe house that I never ended up living in, because I thought I was moving to Chicago. At that point in our lives, we  jousted on bicycles, had strong discussions about the differences between California and Connecticut, danced shamelessly at house parties, cooked (or in my case: failed at cooking) extravagant dinners, and coexisted in the dysfunctional  and beautiful family that was The Radcliff House. 

Now, Jena is an ex-cattle rancher and accomplished business woman in the corporate world living in downtown Sydney, and I am here for work; not even sure where my next plane ticket is headed in two days. It was inevitable that our paths would align again.

Today, I got my partner! His name is Jake, and he’s a lifeguard from Huntington Beach who studied, surfed and worked here in Australia back in college – I knew immediately that we’d be friends. We’ve decided our team name is California Gold, and that surfing will be an essential supplement to our work life. This afternoon, we found out that we’re going to Queensland: home of Brisbane, (“Brisvegas”) the Gold and Sunshine Coast, many of the world’s most famous surf beaches, and of course the infamous Ryan Radford, Liezel and Heinz, three fantastic members of my Australian ISV family. This is going to be an absolutely amazing season… I can feel it already :)