Sydney

NO WORRIES, BEACH LIFE AND AVOCADO

My experience

A year and a half ago, I got the exciting opportunity to go and live in Australia for 7 months to do an internship as part of my Masters. I worked as a Marketing and Events Coordinator at the Alliance Française de Sydney from January to June 2017.

I arrived in Australia on December, 29 2016 after a long 23 hours flight. I left Paris at 5am where it was exactly 0 degrees and when I arrived in Sydney the day after at 7.30pm it was 39 degrees – it was summer there and I got a very warm welcome (literally) as soon as I stepped out of the plane. It was very interesting and unusual to spend the new year by the sea in a light dress with 35 degrees. My experience started off well and seemed to have a lot surprises in store for me...

Australia definitely is another world. As it is a remote island in the middle of the sea, it has its own rules as a country and is quite different to any other place in terms of the way of living and working. However I've noticed it has been widely influenced by North America and its lifestyle, especially Sydney. Large parralels roads, enormous pick-up trucks, huge portions in restaurants, pancakes, burgers and meat everywhere and high skyscrapers, charming middle-class neighbourhoods and so on... But I'd say it remains less superficial than some big american cities I've seen (Los Angeles for instance). The fact that Sydney dwells in the heart of nature and is boarded by the sea makes it much more authentic and gorgeous.

Sydney is very cosmopolitan and there's especially a lot of Asian immigrants (Indians, Japaneses or Indonesians). They've chosen to flee their countries to live the Australian way – more relaxed, more laidback, no pressure, no worries... Australia offers many job opportunities and jobs – as I heard – are usually rather well paid, even if you simply wash dishes in a small restaurant. It's always sunny, people are nice and it's safe. So of course Australia attracts many people from around the world for its dreamy quality of life. However, it is very difficult now for a foreigner to move there for good. The government implemented an immigration enforcement authority in the past couple of years to be able to regulate who enters the country.

I had never seen a city like Sydney simply as there's no similar city. There's no pollution (or at least you can't feel it), the sun shines almost everyday, there are beautiful tropical birds everywhere in town, the night sky is full of stars, every corner of the city is beautiful and people are friendly and just naturally and insanely gorgeous.

There's also something I'll always remember from this city – the sensation of freedom I felt there. A couple of weeks after my arrival, I went to a place called West Head lookout which is at the North end of Sydney in Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park. This magical place overviews the Pacific Ocean and looking at this picture with no end, a feeling of freedom invaded me. What's right in front of you is infinity and you are so small. It made me feel so lucky and thought I still have so much to discover, I felt extremely free right at this moment and this is the best feeling to me.

WEST HEAD LOOKOUT

I didn't really realise it while I was there but I was surely leading a good life... I lived in one the coolest area of Sydney, I had a very interesting job in the city centre with many perks and where we organised great work events always gathering important and fascinating people and I spent all my weekends at the beach or hiking in the nature with good friends. The quality of life in Sydney (and all Australia) is extremely good and is the best I've experienced so far.

During 7 months I lived like a real Australian, I exercised 6 times a week – sometimes even twice a day – either running in my pretty neighbourhood (which of course was boarded by the sea so it made my morning runs much easier) or working out in the gym everyday day after work; I ate avocado and watermelon every single day and brunched in the coolest places of Bondi Beach, Newtown or Manly and I was out all weekend exploring the city and its surroundings.

Some of the highlights / best memories of my experience in Sydney are...

• Paddling in the crystal clear water.

• Eating Ladurée's macarons every week at work thanks to Victoria <3.

• Teaching our Chinese colleague Jenny French cursed words and hearing her trying to pronounce them.

• Meeting kangaroos and seeing them graze mawn in the neighbourhood.

• Working in such a cool company, learning a lot there and having the best time.

• Sales all year long.

• Eating La Planchette's cheese or Four Frogs's crêpes during work events.

• Going to the beach every single weekend no matter what season it is cause it's always warm and sunny.

• Never having to wear a coat / jacket cause it's always warm and sunny.

• Having a beautiful tanned skin as it's ALWAYS WARM AND SUNNY.
  

It was extremely hard to come back to France and leave my little heavenly life forever. Because I indeed had built an actual life there, I made good friends, I loved my job and the area I lived in and all of a sudden I had to let it go knowing that I'd never have it again. It broke my heart and I felt melancholic all summer after that.

Australian people

"No worries" definitely is Australian people's motto. There's no anxiety whatsoever within them, it's insane. There's no problems, only solutions and there's no stress, only smiles. People there are helpful with foreigners and always nice (even employees in restaurants or cafés! Which is not so usual in France is it...). They say "hello" (actually it's more "how you doin'") when they get in the bus and "thanks mate" when they get off. As I wrote above, they are just naturally gorgeous. They really are. And they don't need features because their hair and skin are perfect and have a beautiful colour thanks to the sun. A life by the beach also makes them very luminous, they're human suns.

Biggest differences between Australia and France

There are so many differences between France and Australia so I'll keep it short and won't write them all here otherwise it'd take you ages to read all of them.

I'd say the most striking difference is simply the way of living. In Australia people take life as it is, they kind of go with the flow and they don't stress unecessarily as we French tend to. I, who have an anxious personality, have learnt to live like more peacefully in Australia and it was the first time in my life I didn't feel constantly stressed.

I feel like work is also less stressful but in fairness I can't really compare as I've never had any work experience in France (apart from selling cakes and baguettes as summer jobs...), but a lot of people told me that the working atmosphere in Australia is much more relaxed than in some other places including France. Working in a French company, it was also probably not totally representative of the Australian system but still I must admit that even though we were working hard and seriously, there was no stress or pressure at all and it felt great.

Animals. While we have stupid pigeons, foxes, roes or boars in France, you get used to see kangaroos in your neighbourhood and colourful cockatoos flying over the city centre. But there are also cockroaches – like a lot and that's not very pleasant when they wake you up in the middle of the night rummaging through your bin... And obviously, spiders. Small ones, big ones, harmless ones, killer ones,... In fairness, living in a big city, I didn't see many spiders (fortunately) but I did go to a spider exhibition at the Australian Museum where I got to see all types of spiders we can find in Australia. And as surprising as it can seem the biggest ones aren't the most dangerous!

Still on animals, I can't forget sharks. It's not unusual to see helicopters flying over the beaches to check if there are sharks around. And if it turns out there are sharks, an alarm goes off on the beach and people have to get out of the water.