Melbourne June 06

I am in Melbourne for a worktrip, and have scored perfect time with the long weekend to stay on for some shopping and catching up with mates.

This city is so murcky and bleak in the winter it really can be quite depressing if not for the smell of coffee and vietnamese noodles drifting into the streets. The view infront of me is a smudge of grey, and its chilled into my bones. The air particles feels like flakes of ice, condensing on the tip of my nose. My little cold is not appreciating this at all and I've been on strepsils and pseudoephredrine to keep me running.

Hopping inside a tram is like being surrounded by a bed of amber. These old classic style ones glow with the dim lights and the wooden seating. Young women in coats and boots texting away, old men in burets with their walking sticks, blokes in stubbles and hoodies talking about shakespearian deaths, and me, bewildered clutching a tram map, hands full with bits and pieces of shopping, food, a big bunch of flowers for my lovely hosts. This is so Melbourne, you can't feel like this any where else in the world.