Mid-semester break had finally come around, which meant Max, Tiarnach and I had two weeks free to do whatever we wanted in Australia. We got some recommendations from friends and even a few professors of ours on where the best place to travel to would be, and ended up deciding to take an hour-long train ride to the Central Coast to a beach-side town called Terrigal for the first weekend. We booked an AirBnB for two nights and were excited to explore a new part of Australia. Even though we had been in Newcastle for two months straight, it was still hard to leave, this place had become a real home to us and travelling for just two weeks even felt like a while. Once we arrived to Terrigal though, we were all extremely keen (super popular word here in Aus that we have picked up) to explore and find some fun new spots. Our AirBnB was an adorable one bedroom apartment, with a queen size bunk bed and was just one block away from the beach, which was more than we could have asked for. The beach was beautiful and the town had such a unique charm to it, one weekend there definitely did not feel like enough. After that weekend we travelled to Sydney to stay with one of our friends we had met on college for a week. Staying with a local from the city made our time even better in Sydney, as we got to see all the great local spots, that most tourists miss out on, but of course we had to get in the typical tourist-y site seeing like the Sydney Opera House, The Botanical Gardens and all of the famous beaches. Being from Manhattan, it was so interesting getting to explore Sydney. I’m always so curious how other big cities function and see what they offer and how they differ from home. Sydney is such a massive city and had so much to offer, it is definitely one of my favorite places I’ve ever been to now, I can easily picture myself living there one day. It lies on the beautiful coast and being able to live in both a city and a on beach is my ideal set-up. Later in the week, Max and our two friends we have met on college all went to a really popular music festival in Australia called Listen Out. We got to see some of our favorite artists perform and just experience such a cool and exciting event, it was definitely a highlight of my mid-semester break.
