Glebe (pronounced Gleeb) is one of the many suburbs of Sydney. Actually, people here seem to classify almost every part of this vast city as a suburb, raising the question where the 'urb' is, because the city center or CBD (central business district) is not that large and really just a 40min walk away. But each of the neighbourhoods has their own distinct character. Glebe, where I have been staying the last two weeks, is close to the university, has many parks and is close to the harbour; but then almost everything here is (just look at the map), and it has a lot of dogs. A fact one only realizes when walking a little crazy poodle along the water and it keeps rushing away to steal other dog's balls, and then, when the gigantic and intimidatingly looking proprietor arrives to retrieve their belonging, starts to enact a David-and-Goliath scenario, only to be stopped by human intervention...

What Glebe doesn't have, unfortunately though, is proximity to beaches. And as so many before me I was surprised to learn that although Sydney is a harbour city, the closest ocean-adjoining suburb is still about a one-hour train ride away. Probably the most famous of those is Bondi, tourist attraction, juvenile hang-out and 'whoever wants to be seen, goes there' - spot, quoting a local here. Well, as a consequence, it's constantly crowded and definitely not my favourite place.

Instead, I started discovering the northern beach Manly and its little sister Shelby. Both very quiet, family-friendly and good for snorkelling as well as water sports. And as Sydney is virtually the center for high-profile surfing, I had to give it a try here as well, and I wasn't disappointed. Manly beach is perfect for beginners, there's always waves and all kinds of different ones for every level of surfer. It also has a really nice peninsula, and joining a little group of similar-minded strangers I took it upon me to hike around it. It turned out to be a perfect walk, because we weren't only lucky enough to see some of Sydneys famous spiders floating gently in impressively large nets above our heads, but we also got acquainted with a beautiful green python, an Australian water dragon and a pet parrot. Just perfect...

Generally, I feel like Sydney locals are, even though living in an almost-mega city, very outdoorsy; they love water sports (every seen tiny kids on tiny surfboards?) but also hiking and climbing are widely performed weekend activities. And I guess this is one of the biggest differences to Europe, where the most physical, socially accepted activity is probably minigolf, and if you get sweating doing it, you're doing it wrong. And even though I'm finding new differences every day, I still feel like home and get excited every time I hear people talking English, before realizing that it doesn't mean they are foreigners. Isn't it weird that there are people on this planet for whom English is a native language?