The second day we arrived here, someone reminded us that Melbourne was sort of a mini London. We found it hard to believe, how could such an Australian remote city (22 hours from Gatwick) be similar? Very soon, Anne-Sophie and felt very much at home here and realized there must be some connection between these two cities. London is our favorite city in the world ... if the weather (plus the crap food and this soccer obsession) was not that bad, we might actually have stayed there. Melbourne does have a perfect weather and in is culturally and socially very similar to London.
As my Irish Marketing Prof told me, we love Melbourne because it is so European and looks like home. The city is made-up of old Victorian buildings and definitely a UK flavor. Aussies have a love and hate relationship with the U.K. As any ex British Empire colony, they pride themselves in being different. Australia resonates with outdoor, strange animals, sports, fun, booze, surf and Australian football (not soccer, do not get them offended). In the same time, Australians watch the BBC, buy UK magazines, dress-up like any London pop star. Some of the yougest Australians even go and live in the UK for a while (they have this great thing called 'Commonwealth temporary work Visa').
All of this to say, Melbourne does remind us of London. I guess the most unexpected thing for us was to realize how much this city was culturally active. It ahs nothing to envy to European capitals. Honestly, who would think Australian as being so innovative in terms of design and arts in general. No later than last weekend, I found myself by accident in a Skateboard exhibition; I mean the good stuff with boards decorated by underground artists. I have been looking for this type of event for a very long time and never found anywhere else, even in Europe. I paid attention to the people running this event and found that there is a lot of Asian influence. Looking closely at all these trendy people on the streets, we found that the majority are from Asia, in particular these rich South East countries such as Japan, Korea and Singapore. We are not quite sure what makes Melbourne in particular so appealing to them, maybe the language, or a more liberal country; maybe it is cheaper to study?
What we know for sure is we have been impressed by Melbourne's design capabilities and how people actually pay attention to these tings. In a way this is what makes Melbourne way more European than we expected. And we have been pleasantly surprised. Above is a picture of one of our friends' lobby in the Eureka Tower. I nearly got kicked out of the building after I took that picture ... but it was worth it!
As my Irish Marketing Prof told me, we love Melbourne because it is so European and looks like home. The city is made-up of old Victorian buildings and definitely a UK flavor. Aussies have a love and hate relationship with the U.K. As any ex British Empire colony, they pride themselves in being different. Australia resonates with outdoor, strange animals, sports, fun, booze, surf and Australian football (not soccer, do not get them offended). In the same time, Australians watch the BBC, buy UK magazines, dress-up like any London pop star. Some of the yougest Australians even go and live in the UK for a while (they have this great thing called 'Commonwealth temporary work Visa').
All of this to say, Melbourne does remind us of London. I guess the most unexpected thing for us was to realize how much this city was culturally active. It ahs nothing to envy to European capitals. Honestly, who would think Australian as being so innovative in terms of design and arts in general. No later than last weekend, I found myself by accident in a Skateboard exhibition; I mean the good stuff with boards decorated by underground artists. I have been looking for this type of event for a very long time and never found anywhere else, even in Europe. I paid attention to the people running this event and found that there is a lot of Asian influence. Looking closely at all these trendy people on the streets, we found that the majority are from Asia, in particular these rich South East countries such as Japan, Korea and Singapore. We are not quite sure what makes Melbourne in particular so appealing to them, maybe the language, or a more liberal country; maybe it is cheaper to study?
What we know for sure is we have been impressed by Melbourne's design capabilities and how people actually pay attention to these tings. In a way this is what makes Melbourne way more European than we expected. And we have been pleasantly surprised. Above is a picture of one of our friends' lobby in the Eureka Tower. I nearly got kicked out of the building after I took that picture ... but it was worth it!
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Hi all. How are you?
Delete shis text plz. Sorry
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