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The Library Always Finds You: A Semester in Sydney, One Year On
By Meg Luddington, University of Sydney, Australia I am writing this as I enter the very final week of my degree. Outside my window is Manchester, a city that I love, even when it is raining, as it currently is. Endings always make me reflective, and a time I try to gather my thoughts on the chapter that has just been. As I reflect on the university chapter, I keep finding that many of my fondest memories are not from Manchester at all, but from my semester in Sydney.
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Keeping up with hobbies whilst on exchange in Melbourne
By Amelie Duroux, University of Melbourne, Australia What I hadn’t expected when I moved to Melbourne for my exchange was how much I’d miss the activities I would do every week in Manchester. When you suddenly leave that life behind, there’s nothing making you continue these activities, but I hadn’t realised how much they had contributed to my identity and given me structure in my weekly routine. Luckily for me, I found ways to keep most of these hobbies going, and also start some new ones. For example, in Manchester I went bouldering with my friend every Monday. I was worried that I wouldn’t find anyone who liked climbing in…
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Life at ANU and in Canberra: What to Expect
By Lily Amos, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Coming to ANU as an exchange student, there is quite a lot to get your head around — a new city, a new campus, a new academic system. Here is what I wish someone had told me before I arrived. Courses and Academics ANU runs on a major and minor system, which means that as an exchange student, you may (depending on your course) have a lot more freedom to explore subject areas outside your home degree than you might expect. For me, studying Politics and International Relations, this has been one of the best parts of the whole experience. I’ve…
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Festivals, Events, and Why Canberra Surprised Me
By Lily Amos, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Before I moved to Canberra, my expectations for its social calendar were, honestly, modest. It’s a planned city, a government city, famously described as “a good sheep station ruined” — not exactly the language of a thriving events scene. I was wrong, and I’m glad about it. Canberra turns out to have a genuinely packed festivals calendar, and the city’s layout — all that green open space, that lake, the mountain backdrop — actually makes it a spectacular setting for big outdoor events. Here are the highlights worth knowing about. Canberra Balloon Spectacular Every March, hot air balloons launch over the city…
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All about Melbourne accommodation: where to live whilst studying on exchange
By Amelie Duroux, University of Melbourne, Australia It can be so tricky to know the best place to live at university, especially when you are moving across the world to study abroad. I personally had no idea which accommodation to choose when I was preparing to move over to Melbourne, and ended up choosing the accommodation that the majority of the other University of Manchester students chose. The student living culture at the University of Melbourne is so different to the UK universities, because the majority of Australian students do not move away from home – they continue living at home and commute into university, sometimes with journeys which are…
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Discovering Melbourne coffee and brunch culture and working in a café
By Amelie Duroux, University of Melbourne, Australia One of the most exciting things about moving to Melbourne has been realising you can never get a bad coffee. Good baristas and coffee culture is so distinguished here that every cup you have is of such high quality. Part of the reason I wanted to come to Melbourne was for the brunch culture – I had worked for a couple of years in an Antipodean brunch café in London, which made me want to experience Australian coffee and brunch, and I had said this in my application for my exchange year abroad. Melbourne have claimed to have invented the flat white, which…
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Navigating the End. Some Reflections and Tips After Coming Home.
By Alex Moore, Australian National University (ANU), Australia I found myself sitting back in my childhood bedroom, a year and a day after I first left to go to Australia, feeling like the past year was just a figment of my imagination. It’s hard to comprehend everything that has happened when you are back where you started. I was excited to see my family and friends again, and it’s been so nice to catch up on everything we have missed. But it’s also strange as people talk about their graduations and finishing the uni chapters of their lives. I think, especially because I live very rurally, the change in pace…
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Saying goodbye to Sydney :( some final recommendations and realities
By Logan Tilley, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia It has taken me a couple of months to get around to writing my final blog about Sydney as it just doesn’t seem real that it isn’t my home anymore. I remember seeing these goodbye blogs when I was excited to leave for my year abroad not too long ago and I didn’t think too hard about it as it was so far away. But, one of the realities of such an incredible experience to study abroad is that time does feel like it flies by quickly. Days are filled with new and exciting things to do and see and…
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How I Made My Journey Home More Interesting
By Alex Moore, Australian National University (ANU), Australia The thought of another 24-hour+ travel day was slightly daunting, but I managed to find the first and only layover I have ever been excited for. I found a $950 (c.£475) flight home that involved a 15-hour layover in Tokyo. This meant that I had a 9-hour morning flight from Sydney (a lot cheaper than flying anywhere from Canberra itself), then an evening and night in Tokyo before the 14-hour flight into London. I landed in Japan at around 5 pm (after having the whole row to myself), so I quickly got the train to my hotel to check in, shower, and…
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Why you should visit Esperance, WA
By Emma Pitcher, University of Western Australia Perth, Australia Some of the best beaches in Australia are in WA, and Esperance is home to a few of them. In the south-west of WA, Esperance is a fairly isolated coastal town, about 8 hours drive from Perth. In Semester 2 of my year abroad, I spent my break in Esperance. With a couple of friends, we drove straight there and stayed at a friend’s who lived there. If you drive straight there, you can make a quick stop at Wave Rock in Hyden: The drive there is pretty chill, it is quite a rural part of WA so you get to…
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The Exchange Comedown : Navigating Reverse Culture Shock
By Nina Vincent, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Why Coming Home After Exchange Was Harder Than Leaving If you’ve found yourself on Manchester on the Road, I suspect you’re either deciding whether or not to do a year abroad, or maybe you’ve already been allocated your destination and are looking for more info before you leave. If this is you, I’m sure you’ve already come across loads of information preparing you for all the ways things will be different in your exchange country — culturally, academically, and socially. Living in a completely different place with a different history and culture… your way of life inevitably changes too. It’s great to be…
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How I spent my Summer Holidays in Australia
By Emma Pitcher, University of Western Australia Perth, Australia The best part of doing your year abroad in Australia is that you get an extra long break between semesters! Aussie summer holidays are over Christmas time so this gives you plenty of time to travel. Popular destinations included the east coast of Aus, New Zealand, and SE Asia as you’re so close. From Perth especially, it’s a shorter flight to Bali or Singapore than it is to Sydney. At the end of my first semester, I went to Kuala Lumpur and Bali, with a stopover in Jakarta, and then to Singapore where I spent Christmas. KL is a great city…
A study abroad journal by students, for students.
