Victor Rhia Strailya

I love Melbourne. I tell my friends this, I tell people I don't even know or care for this - that Melbourne is Australia's best kept secret.

To be fair, I don't often have the wherewithal to explain why I dig the second city of Australia. I often stumble about why I love with a sporadic number of reasons. It's the architecture. It's the fact it reminds me of a smaller version of the Northeast US Cities that I know. It's the hidden alley ways or the underground shopping centres. It's the burgeoning music scene not seen in any other Australian city. It's that the Melbournians have an incredible pride in their city. It's there Boston to Sydney's New York. It's each of these reasons individually and collectively.

Heading across the Bolte Bridge after arriving in Melbourne is also one of my favourite things about Melbourne. If you drive in from Avalon at night, just when autumn is turning to winter, the seagulls fly in the bright lights just off the left of the bridge. The lights are bright, seen probably from a gazillion kilometers away. The seagulls fly in circles. The seagulls are large and in charge, swarming several pancake layers tall. If you look close enough you can see the moths swarming to the light. It is those white tinged insects that have brought the Seagulls here, not the bright lights of the Bolte bridge. It is dinner and it is beautiful thing.

God I love Melbourne.