If Melbourne Had Sydney’s Beaches…

When I first began to think about traveling for the next 67 years, I wrote down some goals to try to define the reasons for doing this. One goal was to find the best country or city in the world and stay there for a while. I have quickly realized that every country is the best country and every city is the best city in the world. I’m in a good place! Melbourne and Sydney each have different things that appeal to me but I can’t decide which one I like best. If these two cities could be combined then that would make me reconsider my 67-year plan.

Melbourne

Melbourne was way bigger than I thought! There are approximately 4.4 million people living in the metropolitan area of Melbourne. This city is my definition of “cool.” The food, art, music and sports scenes were impressive. I also liked the weather. It felt like a mix between San Francisco and San Diego. I loved exploring the suburbs – Carlton, St Kilda, Brighton and Fitzroy were some of my faves. I was in the Melbourne area for about 9 days and I found the best breakfast and coffee 10 times… each day got better and I ate breakfast twice on the last day. Also, people watching while running along the Yarra River was fun! What? Oh, yes, of course I took pictures of my amazing coffees and breakfasts!!:

The Australian Open was an amazing experience, I can’t really describe it, if you like tennis you should just go. The level of play was unbelievable and the energy of the crowd was hilarious. The best part was that the stadium was small so every seat was great! I want to go back.

Sydney

Sydney felt way bigger to me; approximately 4.8 million people live in the metropolitan area, so it isn’t that much bigger than Melbourne. Sydney felt like New York in California. Expensive with endless shopping, ideal weather and amazing beaches (that’s why I slept on a sleeper sofa for 2 weeks).

I don’t know much about the “brekkie” and coffee scene in Sydney for multiple reasons: I think I obtained an egg allergy from eating too much breakfast in Melbourne 😉 , I cooked for myself since my accomodation had a kitchen, and I had to scale back on the caffeine.  When you order coffee in Australia you get a “short black”, “long black”, “flat white”, etc.  Translation: espresso, espresso with water, espresso with steamed milk. So good and so strong. There isn’t much drip coffee around, I guess that is why someone asked me if Starbucks is really America’s public toilet. So, only four coffee pictures from Sydney, I always order a long black:

Anyway, of course Sydney has an unlimited list of sights to see. The Sydney Harbour, lots of free museums, beautiful gardens, endless people watching, markets, mountains, everything. I have a long list of things that I didn’t get to see in the two weeks I was there.

I did get to watch my first live cricket match. And this was not just any cricket match, it was part of the ICC Cricket World Cup. Basically, the Olympics of cricket, it is held every four years and it happened to be hosted by Australia and New Zealand this year. In a short 7 hour game I learned the rules and all the fun phrases like: snicko, dibbly-dobbly, and “howzat?!!” – what fielders yell at the umpire when they are appealing a call. Honestly I think I understand about 20% of the rules.

If Melbourne had Sydney’s beaches I would live there. Too bad, I will have to keep exploring. One month down, 803 more to go!

Yes, I saw most of the things you know about Melbourne and Sydney, do you want to see some of what I saw? Check out all of my pictures on the Snaps page.