Melbourne: An Overview

As part of our Journey Abroad class, we had to keep up with this blog. As part of keeping up with this blog, we are asked to comment on a few things in each city we go to. The following will serve not only as a reflection on Sydney but will also (maybe…hopefully) provide a bit more insight into this unique Australia metropolis.

The Built Environment:

More than any other city in Australia, in Melbourne we were able to get an up close view of the built environment. Simply, we were able to see more buildings, more architecture, more construction. Melbourne has held a reputation of having the most cutting edge architecture across Australia for years. This reputation held true. We were able to visit a number of architecturally brilliant buildings. Next to every drab, 1960s box of a building stood some kind of quirky architectural mess. It was confusing in parts, but equally awesome. There was an abundance of architecturally stimulating buildings, bridges, public spaces, and the like. Melbourne wasn’t as successful at engaging the natural environment into the city as Sydney and Brisbane. The built environment felt colder in places and the city was not as clean. However, I found that the architecture more than made up for it.

The Natural Environment:

Again, like the other major cities in Australia, Melbourne had a plethora of trees and wildlife unlike anywhere else I had ever seen. There were beautiful botanical gardens and parks in Melbourne although they weren’t a central part of the city as much as so as I had seen elsewhere.

The Minority Culture and Local Culture:

Because Melbourne felt like a much more modern and progressive urban environment, the culture reflected that. There was a wide array of people in Melbourne. You saw a little of everything: gothic people sitting on street corners, a large gay and lesbian community, an influx of Asian and Eastern Europeans, and more young than old. There wasn’t a strong Aboriginal presence in Melbourne, it again was more Asian than anything else.

Conversation with Locals:

While sitting in the tv room at RMIT Village, we met two of the resident assistants, Lizzy and Adele. Both Lizzy and Adele were from small towns outside of Melbourne and went to RMIT for school. They were about our age and we had multiple conversations throughout the week. One night we talked about the differences in college life. For one, parents don’t typically pay for college education and most everyone in university has a job through school. They also said they were in the minority in that they left home and lived elsewhere in college. They said that Americans typically have a reputation of being fun and loving to party, which is why they loved Americans. They also said that they loved all things American and that our music, movies, and television were all watched and followed in Australia just as much. Our Hollywood is their Hollywood, which I found interesting. In fact, one of the girls is moving to Orlando to work at Disney World soon so we talked a lot about that and what she can expect. 

The following video I took with my camera at the Australian Open. Details on the video.