Melbourne – The City I Planned to Live in

Poor Melbourne, I placed so many expectations on this one city as I had hoped to make it my home one day. Sure, Melbourne delivered and as far as modern cities go it’s pretty fantastic. Trouble is, I’ve changed. So many questions whirling around my head now about what I want from this life. I just want to be free to roam, career ideas have taken a backseat and if I could I’d never stop wandering (unless any prospective employers are reading this natch).

Again, I was taken in by a friend and her boyfriend and I was so well looked after. People’s kindness overwhelms me. Another friend who I met in Tibet (yup I know how wanky that sounds) showed me the city sites, got me a haircut and listened to my life stresses – yes they still occur when roaming the world.

The main thing I’ll take away from this city was the street art, I soaked it up and I love the way it’s embraced and not erased. But then again it’s not the bog standard amateur mindless tagging you often see. The depth of colour and tone bounce off the brickwork and brighten up the darkest of alleys.

I explored the quirky streets of Fitzroy and Brunswick, wandered the beach of St Kilda and went to a gig at The Corner Hotel, Crystal Fighters no less – they sounded fantastic as always and maybe seeing a UK formed group wasn’t the typical Australian experience but I was bloody happy I got to see them live again.

The people of Melbourne weren’t lying about the crazy climate either, it can go from chilly and raining to scorching within hours. I think one of Melbourne’s biggest charms is its subtlety. Nothing is obvious, so to find the coolest bars you have to hunt for them and even the most stunning houses are fairly plain to look at from outside. Having said that, many of the houses are really quirky from the outside and many streets aren’t uniform. Victorian style homes are fairly common to see but they’re far more over the top than any UK Victorian houses with a mass of wrought iron in really elaborate designs – love this architecture.

The city is spacious and as cultural as a modern day city can be. It’s definitely on ‘the list’, just not as high on the list as I expected. Vancouver and San Francisco are still winning but I’m sure I’ll be back one day.