Manly, a suburb of Sydney – Study abroad in Australia

Report by Romana S.

Manly. My new home for the following three months. As soon as I arrived I fell in love with this place. Manly is a beautiful district (actually one of the wealthiest ones) of Sydney but it seems more like an independent small town. It was a welcome change to the usual big city life I have back home. Besides some shops, Manly offers restaurants and bars in its centre as well as a variety of beaches. There is quite a lot to choose from and almost all of the beaches are amazing. The closest one to the college is Shelly Beach. I personally do not really like that one very much because there are too many broken shells lying around. Manly Beach is way prettier but also more crowded. Collins Beach is one of the more quiet ones but it is also a little further away. All in all, each beach has its ups and downs. There is something for every taste.

Night-life

As for the night-life in Manly: well, remember how I told you that there are a lot of clubs and bars to go to, so your nights never get boring? There is a catch: most of those places are not in Manly. Don’t get me wrong, there is a quite a lot of bars. 21, to be exact. But the ones that the students from ICMS mainly go to are: Wharf Bar, Steyne, Shark Bar, Ivanhoe, Brklyn and Sugar Lounge. (At least that’s where we went most of the time.) Sydney obviously offers numerous party venues but it is quite a drive there (either by cab or ferry). To be honest, we just didn’t feel like spending so much money and having to “travel so far” (lazy students, right?).
Anyway, Tuesday nights are reserved for the one and only Shark Bar! You will notice it has a bit of a bad reputation and is looked down on. However, everyone goes there (especially Tuesdays). And as far as I am concerned, I do not find it that bad. I had a lot of good nights there. I even remember most of them ;) The reason people go there on that one night of the week is that the alcohol prices are reduced. Let me tell you, no matter how expensive things are in Australia, it feels like alcohol is more expensive. Well, the Wednesday mornings were not as much fun as you can imagine. It was worth it, though (just don’t overdo it).

Thursday nights

On Thursday nights, it was either the Ivanhoe or Steyne. Steyne always has a different live band playing each week and in Ivanhoe you can sing karaoke and be your own live band. I, for my part, preferred Steyne. The bands were pretty cool and varied so much from another.
The next day, first official day of the weekend, there is a special party every two weeks. So, that’s where we went out to on those nights.
Saturdays were definitely Ivanhoe nights. On that day the place was packed, always. You could barely dance. Sometimes it was just too much. But they played good and danceable music.
Sunday evenings are spent at the Wharf Bar. It is a quiet but big cocktail bar/restaurant. It is a sweet and good place to end an exhausting party-weekend – or to continue it.

What we also did a lot was to stay in and watch movies in the basement. Movie-nights are the best. Of course, only if you prepare yourself properly and go to Coles first. ;)
Enjoy your Australian nights!