A Tennessee Girl in Oz: Solo Christmas in Sydney

I had a solo Chrissy in Sydney, while T went to visit his family. Luckily Sydney is one of the best places I can imagine to spend Christmas by myself. We know so many expats here, as well as some lovely Aussies, I had no less than 12 offers to join other people's celebrations, so I was far from lonely. It also happened to be a lovely long streak of hot and sunny weather, which meant beach days for me!

Sun's shining at 6 AM - time to go to the beach!

Christmas Eve - Chinamans Beach

The ice cream boat came by a few times while I was at Chinamans Beach.

Next up was Clovelly Beach for Christmas Day. I thought it might be quiet, but that turned out not to be the case at all.

Madness!

I talked to a local man who was also watching this craziness. He told me it's a tradition for the lifesaving station every Christmas. The community brings out hard boiled eggs. At a given time, the kiddos jump in the water and people throw the eggs in. If a kid gets an egg, s/he can exchange it for an ice cream. And they dye the water green for good measure. Australia is weird. On the ocean end of them beach, it was a bit quieter. Perfect for me and some snorkeling!

I had such good snorkeling at Clovelley, I went back on my last day off from work too. Lots of beautiful fish, and some huge groper, at least three feet long. On my second visit, though, a woman near me got a really good sting from a bluebottle jellyfish. I decided I was good for the day after that!

My Christmas Day included a lunch at a friends house. The couple is from France and Germany, and so we had a French-German-Aussie lunch while I played with their 15 month old baby. It was a quiet, happy day. The city was done up for Christmas too!