Melbourne anniversary
Aug. 28th, 2011 07:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maryEight years ago today, I moved to Melbourne.
I love you, city. I love your obsession with coffee and your all-black-all-the-time dress code. I love the way that you'll open a bar literally anywhere there are two square feet of space together. I love your excellent tram system which somehow manages to run a thousand times better than your train system despite being much more complicated.
I love your mix of extremely pretentious people and incredibly invested football fans. I love your weird little niche-market shops in arcades and up stairs, the ones that seem far too specialised to be viable and yet hang around far longer than the chain stores. I love your weekend mornings when it seems like the whole population spills out onto footpath cafes for eggs on toast and a latte.
I love those first bright clear blue days that feel like a return of colour to the world after your miserable winters. I love that after eight years I am no closer to understanding or being accustomed to this year-round anarchy you call 'weather'. I love your bookshops. I love your ridiculous and pointless rivalry with Sydney. I love that you have two airports and that one of them is literally a shed in the bush.
I love your art galleries with their abstract stained-glass ceilings and whitewash-clean hallways. I love your state library's panopticon reading room and the collage of eras in its architecture. I love the stencil art in alleyways and sidestreets, the riot of thought and message and design and brashness that spills over itself in a sublime tangle.
I love your restored movie theatres that show blockbusters and sell cheap popcorn. I already mentioned that I love your bookshops, but I really love your bookshops. I love your comics shops. I love your shops that sell vintage medical curiosities and monocles. I love your shops that sell top hats and cravats. I love your diversity. I love that every time I get disillusioned with my job, I'm reminded of something amazing that someone managed here and feel inspired again.
I love your libraries and your wide streets and your trees that change the look of everything as the seasons turn. I love your reproduction tall ships and the wind out on the bay. I love that the entire city is genuinely obsessed with coffee. I love your beautiful, beautiful architecture; you are still one of the most romantic places I have ever seen.
I love that anyone I meet who has common interests with me has at least two or three exisiting connections to people I already know. No, seriously, Melbourne, sometimes it's kind of creepy how linked everyone's lives seem to be in the subcultures. I love that the subcultures are thriving and alive and happy and strong. I love that there's always a place for even the weirdest parts of a person to find validation and community in this city.
I love you, Melbourne. Thanks for letting me be a part of you.
I love you, city. I love your obsession with coffee and your all-black-all-the-time dress code. I love the way that you'll open a bar literally anywhere there are two square feet of space together. I love your excellent tram system which somehow manages to run a thousand times better than your train system despite being much more complicated.
I love your mix of extremely pretentious people and incredibly invested football fans. I love your weird little niche-market shops in arcades and up stairs, the ones that seem far too specialised to be viable and yet hang around far longer than the chain stores. I love your weekend mornings when it seems like the whole population spills out onto footpath cafes for eggs on toast and a latte.
I love those first bright clear blue days that feel like a return of colour to the world after your miserable winters. I love that after eight years I am no closer to understanding or being accustomed to this year-round anarchy you call 'weather'. I love your bookshops. I love your ridiculous and pointless rivalry with Sydney. I love that you have two airports and that one of them is literally a shed in the bush.
I love your art galleries with their abstract stained-glass ceilings and whitewash-clean hallways. I love your state library's panopticon reading room and the collage of eras in its architecture. I love the stencil art in alleyways and sidestreets, the riot of thought and message and design and brashness that spills over itself in a sublime tangle.
I love your restored movie theatres that show blockbusters and sell cheap popcorn. I already mentioned that I love your bookshops, but I really love your bookshops. I love your comics shops. I love your shops that sell vintage medical curiosities and monocles. I love your shops that sell top hats and cravats. I love your diversity. I love that every time I get disillusioned with my job, I'm reminded of something amazing that someone managed here and feel inspired again.
I love your libraries and your wide streets and your trees that change the look of everything as the seasons turn. I love your reproduction tall ships and the wind out on the bay. I love that the entire city is genuinely obsessed with coffee. I love your beautiful, beautiful architecture; you are still one of the most romantic places I have ever seen.
I love that anyone I meet who has common interests with me has at least two or three exisiting connections to people I already know. No, seriously, Melbourne, sometimes it's kind of creepy how linked everyone's lives seem to be in the subcultures. I love that the subcultures are thriving and alive and happy and strong. I love that there's always a place for even the weirdest parts of a person to find validation and community in this city.
I love you, Melbourne. Thanks for letting me be a part of you.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 03:45 am (UTC)I could make one, but I'm very lazy, it's a problem.
However: THIS. Melbourne, city of my heart. <3
no subject
Date: 2011-08-30 12:19 am (UTC)(Yes, I have been driven so packing-addled that I find it just about as reasonable to move TO AUSTRALIA as the mile away I'm actually about to move.)
no subject
Date: 2011-08-30 12:20 am (UTC)