The Cosmopolitan City

Author: Corinne Posted on: August 9, 2009 at 9:10 pm No Comment

Melbourne It is the City of…

… boots and elegant winter scarves; multiple facial piercings on twenty-somethings; the ubiquitous spaghetti marinara on plates and menus; crisp mornings with a welcome stillness in the air; café trottoirs and restaurants with outdoor gas heaters; generous servings and warm service; a vibrant city centre abuzz with an eclectic mix of people; single red rose sellers in restaurants; night-lit buildings and an eerie green glow of old trees;

… food lovers who have cast the waif-starved look with flashy flesh exposure in favour of more rotund figures; tight narrow lanes that are open to traffic; helpful locals ready with a smile and a sense of humour; decadent shopping arcades with European flair; long strips of eateries vying for business and enticing customers with free bottles of wine with dinner;

… a calm stretch of water where the sea meets the sky in a powder blue finish that locals call a beach; preservation and restoration instead of demolishing and modernisation; skinny leg jeans tucked into stylish long boots; caked-on foundations on pale skins of young pencil-like figures; patrons huddling around tiny square tables; outdoor smokers and smokers in open air dining;

… redefining the cosmopolitan label with young men in white shoes, numerous Kwik-E-Marts and a lot of Indians, authentic Italian restaurants with Lebanese owners, and foreign accents such as Italian, French, Greek, Indian and overheard alongside English; small cafés that are licensed for alcohol; perfect lattes but no white sugar; cyclists, cars, pedestrians and trams cohabiting the streets; free wifi hotspots and more…

It is the city of… Melbourne.

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Corinne (Ms Gourmantic) has a strong penchant for packing a laptop, a camera, a large suitcase and roaming the globe in search of gastronomic adventures. An avid scribe, her repertoire includes works of fiction, short stories, travelogues as well as authoring blogs and photoblogs. She is currently writing a fiction novel.