Melbourne (CBD?)

I started this blog about two weeks ago, but I haven’t really talked about the city Melbourne itself. I will start with a few highlights. The river Yarra draws a curly line across Melbourne, a lot more playful and less segregating than the one drawn by the river Seine in Paris. Yarra looks incredibly muddy but the fact that it flows and rowboats manage to go on it confirm the fact that there is sufficient water in the mud. I love the numerous pedestrian bridges across the river in the Southbank area (Southbank? tres Paris!), from which the city’s skyline presents itself like a lively Leggo site. The equivalent of the American “downtown” is called CBD, short for Central Business District. Misleading, but since Aussies love to abbreviate words, I learnt to refer to it the same way. I propose another name CRD, or Central Restaurant District, because many restaurants are concentrated on the streets and alleys of Melbourne. The city also has an array of shopping areas (although prices are either double or triple those in the US!), with the most attractive being some historical laneways and arcades, without cars, European-style, planted with boutiques and cafes. Oh, cafes should come ahead of Yarra as the highlight of Melbourne! Cappuccinos and espressos, lattes, macchiatos? They all live here with us and this city is a heaven for coffee lovers (like me), who almost went into withdrawal after the “regular”, diluted, gigantic, etc, coffee in the US. Melbourne has mesmerizing parks (Royal Botanical Gardens, Fitzroy Gardens) and gardens populated not only with the most exotic trees and plants, but also filled with flocks of parrots and even flying foxes. Melbourne’s persona comes through also with the markets, the most famous and largest of which is Queen Victoria Market. Oh, I wish I could share the sounds and colors from this market that flood it every Saturday morning, at its peak activity! Half the market buzzes with vendors of crafts, opals, and junk, and half with fresh produce: veggies and fruit, meat (A LOT! And cheap because Aussies love it on the barbie), fish and seafood (have you ever heard of the Moreton Bay bug?), and delis (awesome cheese at prohibitive prices of up to $80/lb, nougat of all kinds, South African biltong, marinated stuff, etc). Finally, there are the Federation Square, which half the people perceive as the ugliest piece of architecture and half as the most modern (see for yourself by clicking on the name), Flinders Street Station (jaundiced but beautiful train station), the dizzying Eureka Tower (Trump-style apartment high-rise, in the top ten tallest apartment buildings in the world), and many other interesting places that make Melbourne what it is. It's time for a cappuccino now! The picture is from one of the pedestrian, artsy bridges over Yarra in Southbank.