Sydney

As a student, I realize I am constantly on a budget. This is a struggle because as a student I constantly want to do things that cost money. I want to go out, get food/drinks with friends, and travel around. As a study abroad student, all these wants are multiplied, along with the costs. I have found so far that traveling while studying abroad in Sydney, Australia is different than as opposed to another common study abroad destination such as Europe. In Europe, many different countries are close together, and costs are very inexpensive to get from one country to the next using budget airlines, such as Ryan Air. I have studied abroad in Italy and can say I have gotten 5 euro flights before. Studying abroad in Australia is a different ball game though. We have a mid-semester break coming up, and a group of people in the IES Abroad program are going to Bali. I was just talking to one of my friends who can’t go because the trip itself is over 1,000 dollars per person. Luckily, I have been traveling around while studying in different countries the past few years, and I have been keen to find out ways to enjoy myself on a budget, and slightly off the beaten path travel experiences which I actually have come to prefer. 

This last weekend my friend Iggy and I went on a road trip with a random friend of a friend who knew we are on a budget and wanted to explore around and surf. It was one of the most inexpensive and best trips I’ve taken in a long time. Our friend of a friend (and road trip driver) ended up being a lovely Argentinian man who had been traveling around the world for years and is always keen to make new surf friends. We went to a place a couple hours south of Sydney called Jervis Bay. It is known as a lovely campground and surf spot with some of the whitest sand in Australia and copious amounts of wild kangaroos! I can confirm it contained all it is known for. Getting there was half the fun as well. Red Hot Chili Pepper music and open window air filled the car along with crazy stories my friends shared about traveling around the world. We had clean glassy sets of waves, hiked through the woods, cooked warm sweet potatoes and corn over the fire, and went in our warm and cozy tent at night to wake up the next day to do it all again. 

Throughout my travel experiences, I seem to often find myself in these off-the-beaten-path scenarios. All my friends back home and other friends from study abroad programs like IES Abroad always ask me how I get into these crazy adventure story situations. I feel like my life is a movie sometimes and I look back and try to trace steps to come up with a sort of answer for my friends who want to live like that. The only equation I have come up with is to be open. Be open to new people, opportunities, places, etc. Take calculated risks, and look on the positive side of everything. See the world as a place that is good, and attract more goodness into your life instead of always expecting the worst from people. I always remind myself that all friends were once strangers, and strangers can more easily become friends if we keep a sense of intuition about the people we interact with outside our contained university campuses and organized tour trip borders. More stories of my travels like this will be shared now that you know how I like to travel and live. I will share my off-the-beaten-path travels as much as possible to hopefully help inspire this way of getting around which I have come to feel so alive from.

The beginning of classes has gotten everyone to start settling into life here abroad in Sydney. While often many students travel around Australia when they come to study abroad, many who are living on a budget (like myself), find more local means of traveling around. I have a trip planned to Byron Bay for the mid-semester break, which I am excited to write about when I experience it later. For now, however, I have been taking a liking to adventuring around the suburbs surrounding Sydney. The bus system here is very easy and manageable, which has been nice to get around on. An Opal card is what people use to get around in Sydney. It is as easy as walking into any convenience store to purchase the card as well as topping it up in the store as well. The Opal card also has an app that allows one to top-up easily and on a mobile, which has been what I do mainly. 

I have been taking the bus everywhere except for the major city area for some reason. I really like getting to know the smaller areas around Sydney first; somehow it makes an already overwhelming experience less overwhelming I think. What I am noticing everywhere I go in the city is that each small suburb carries a certain connotation with it, like most do in most places.  For example, I live in Newtown, which is where the housing and University of Sydney campus is. Other than being a student city, Newtown is known as the hipster area of Sydney. There are many young and hip concept stores that I will write some individual posts on later as well. If you take the train over to Marrickville, you find a less gentrified Newtown, or what Newtown was in the beginning stages of its existence. It is grungy, young, and has a lot of less main-stream night-life and activities.

Continuing on the route of my favorite suburbs, one ends up in Surry Hills. Surry Hills is definitely more up-scale than Newtown and Marrickville, but still not a major city area. There are a myriad of cute cafes and vintage stores tucked away within the many hills of the city, but also a few more eclectic places as well. Heading over to Paddington for some reason seems to resonate with the name in my head...more preppy, upper-class, well to do suburb of the city. Adorable, on-trend shops are tucked away within the area as well as amazing thrift stores I have been finding due to the type of people that leave clothing there. 

Despite all the different suburbs I have been exploring, I feel I am in my comfort zone in a way still. I am out and about, but I am not running toward what makes me uncomfortable, which is at the moment, heading into the heart of the city. I am very fickle with cities; sometimes I love them, sometimes I hate them. I need a good dose of nature and city life to keep me grounded I think. There has always been something about cities for me since I was little that seems to make it harder to breathe in a way for me. I will hopefully push myself to get out of my suburb comfort zone and head toward the larger parts surrounding Sydney but keep making time to weave in and out of my favorite cities in the little towns scattered around that I have been frequenting.