A week in Australia

6 days ago

5 min read

This past week, I had the most beautiful time in Sydney, Australia, with two of my very best friends. Back in September, when one of my friends had the spontaneous idea to visit our other friend, who is studying abroad in Sydney, we jumped at the opportunity! It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but probably the best one I made all year.

We landed around 8 in the morning, so we took advantage of every single second of daytime and Bondi bliss. We dropped off our luggage at our friend’s apartment, changed into swimsuits (lathered in sunscreen of course), and ran to the beach just steps away from our front door! The feeling was magical. Everyone was out and about with athletic clothes, swimsuits, yoga mats, and/or surf boards. It was a beautifully bright and sunny day. Coming from the middle of winter in Boston, this weather felt like a shock to my system. Don’t even get me started on the UV… The entire boardwalk and beach were packed with people all so happy to live this simple and glorious lifestyle. I was in awe and immediately drawn to the infectious energy and put it at the top of my list for cities I would move to.

Warning: gun violence discussion

Unfortunately, our first couple of hours in Sydney were met with grave devastation to the community we were staying in. Around 8 pm Sunday, two shooters began targeting a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on the shores of Bondi Beach. My friends and I were by the Opera house when we heard the news from fellow Aussies in complete shock and horror. Simply put this does not happen in Australia.

Our travel day, the day before, we were just discussing the shooting at Brown University, which occurred Saturday around 4pm. We talked about mutual friends and the continuance of gun violence in the United States like it is just an every other day occurrence.

The next morning, we visited the site of the memorial on Bondi. It felt natural to find some kind of closure and awareness to the tragedy that occurred. Or simply to comprehend what had just occurred a quarter mile from where we were living for the next 7 days! Together, my friends and I overlooked the diverse crowd of loved ones of victims, community members, and visitors who had come together to mourn the loss of members of the Bondi community. In our own ways of religion and spirituality, we bowed our heads, held tightly on to one another and said a prayer for those who had passed, those affected, and those who had lost family and friends.

To see a community come together after a tragedy is one of the most empowering, uplifting, and beautiful moments you can witness and be a part of. One by one, people made their way down to the to the pavilion to lay bouquets of flowers. In these moments, I kept thinking how grateful I was to have such empathetic best friends and for the ability to comfort each other in an uncertain and unfathomable time such as this.

In the day after walking around Bondi felt eerie and very gloom. It seems mother nature was mourning as well, as the sky was grey and overcast. My friends and I pretty much walked in silence giving space for reflection and our own time to process the events that occurred the day before. The crowds of people had vanished. The smiling, free living, active people of Bondi were nowhere to be seen. The entire beach was deserted.

“This must be what Americans feel like every day” said an Australian native we met for drinks with a couple of our other American friends. My friends and I paused for a moment as we thought about what she had said. Speaking for myself, I responded, “I don’t think I feel this way”. I don’t live in fear every single day. I don’t worry about being a victim in the next school/mass shooting. But why don’t I live in fear?

To put into an approximation of school/mass shootings, the United States has had around 398 (mass shooting is considered 4+ people killed) in 2025. Australia has had a total of 1 mass shooting in 2025 (this was Bondi). After the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, strict gun-control laws and a gun-buyback program dramatically reduced firearm violence.

Needless to say, it seems like Americans, or my friends in I in this case, have become completely desensitized to gun violence and school/mass shootings. It is troubling to think this way, but this explains how inexplicably hard it was to comprehend the shooting at Bondi. I’d like to clarify that this desensitization is not a lack of care; it is a repeated overwhelming sense of shock to the nervous system. It is a common experience from as young as grade school to practice lockdown and active shooter drills. And after such events occur, we immediately see the footage, photos of victims, survivor interview, political leaders on live television. The speed and volume at which we experience these tragedies leaves no space to process or mourn. And after friends, family, mutuals have been victims of violence, I start to feel like my activism and emotional reaction leads to nothing. The cycle repeats.

There is a lot to say on this topic of gun violence and how much I believe in gun reform, but I would also like to address the clear hate crime and antisemitism that was involved in this shooting. It has become very clear that our world is suffering from hatred, and we somehow cannot accept other’s religious, cultural, spiritual, and other customary values. What makes this massacre different from the countless American school shootings that make the headlines, is that this was a targeted, hateful, and intentionally antisemitic shooting of Jewish people in their time of religious celebration. It is also astonishing considering one of the most surprising things I noticed about Australia (Sydney specifically) was the immense multiculturalism and diversity of people. The feeling I received on Sunday whilst walking around Bondi that morning was unity, peace, and serenity. This was not exemplified later that day and I was more in mere shock that there is that much hatred in the world.

But, to sum up my time in Australia, I will not let this define my trip. I will not bring power to this hateful crime. I can only pray for those affected and continue to bring my efforts towards helping oppressed communities and advocating for gun reform.

Amazing and positive moments in Australia

· Ellie was accepted into the two top dental programs and several other top 5 schools and we were there to witness the magical moment!

· We went to visit so many beautiful beaches: Shelly, Camp Cove, Bondi, etc.

· We met up with some Northeastern classmates who are now living in Australia!

· I had the most strong matcha of my life it felt like coffee.

· I was able to spend 7 blissful and stress-free days with my wonderful friends

· I was able to take a much-needed break from work

· We saw so many animals at the zoo!

· We saw DOM DOLLA!

· Pilates, beach, and swimming every single day…

· I was soooo good at applying sunscreen and only had minor burns.

· I saw my first capybara.