Melbourne Edition #3

Some photos - I do ok with my trusty little Canon (soon to be upgraded) and they're in no particular order...

I love airports. LOVE THEM. Love the smell, the movement

Cacti on Toorak Road

The incredibly ugly Luna Park face on St Kilda beach - hate it

Santa hard at work in his shop front on Bridge Road

Flinders Street Station of course...

The Yarra

Pointy

St Kilda Road, reminds me of a Parisian Street

Pounding the Pavement

Botanical Gardens

The Shrine of Remembrance

So Melbs was great. I had relatively good weather for my visit - "London cold" - which is brilliant because in the event that I move down there I have a whole winter wardrobe waiting for display on the streets of our nation's self professed 'fashion capital'. TICK

It's very picturesque for the most part. The Royal Botanical Gardens reminded me of Regents Park in London due largely to its deciduous trees and monuments. Plus the eye candy ain't that bad, even if it was a cool 11 degrees Celsius - bring on the unitard winter gear boys! TICK

Amazing Shrine of Remembrance - it houses each kind of Australian flag, ledgers containing names of the service men and women who enlisted and died in the Great war (1914-1918), and the remembrance stone (not to be confused with the Philosopher's stone) set in the centre of the floor inscribed with "Greater love hath no man". It is particularly beautiful given that on the 11th of November each year a ray of light shines in through the entrance and onto the word 'love' on the stone and will do so for the next 5000 years at least. Cool shit. TICK

Graffiti. Ok look I've lived in the biggest cities in the world. Some parts of NYC weren't all that great in terms of 'streetscapes' and London had it's fair share of unsavoury scribble, but seriously there isn't a building free of it in Melbs! I'm really not a big fan. It just makes the place look messy and like it needs a good hose down with an industrial high pressure nozzle and some white king. Maybe I'm just a snobovich. CROSS

I'll be honest, grungy Fitzroy isn't my thing. I would definitely consider living in South Yarra, Toorak, Port Melbourne or Richmond. If I had my way I'd take up residence on Collins Street so that I could gaze upon Chanel and Hermes until my eyes started to water. TICK

All of these things are important and nice but what really blew me away was the people.

1. Miracle of miracles, there were actually real, live, grown, well dressed, single men there; and

2. The girlfriend that I met up with, who I haven't seen in a couple of years and only briefly worked with, was absolutely the hostess with the mostess. She had organised dinner with a couple of her friends on Sat night to talk all things Melbourne and to convince me that it was an amazing city to be living in. I could not have felt more welcome and grateful for her warmth and sheer down to earth genuine nature. And the same went for her friends, they were so open and lovely and we had an absolute ball in an amazing gastro pub in Sth Melbourne. The girls even offered to swing by in the morning, give me a small tour, take me to a favourite place for brunch and then dropped me at the airport! Just so incredibly nice. I think in recent times I've been a bit disillusioned by the changing nature of friendships and this took me by surprise. If these are the kinds of peops rollin down south then count me in! DOUBLE TICK

So there we have it folks. There's obviously a lot more drivel I could crap on about but it's my bed time and the good lord knows I need my beauty sleep right now.

.....TICK!!!