Moving to Melbourne

After spending a total of a fortnight and two days in Sydney, I'm mostly prepared to make the 12-hour coach ride down to Melbourne tonight. During the past two weeks, I've dedicated a great deal of time to deciding which cities I wanted to call home while completing this year of living in Australia. In the end, it was clear that Sydney and Melbourne, the two largest cities in this country, were the two places I wanted to spend the majority of my time.

While debating whether or not to stay in Sydney for my first months, since I was already here and I knew it would be the more convenient option, I talked to several friends from church and other backpackers who have been to or even lived in both Sydney and Melbourne. Literally everyone I've

spoken with about my dilemma told me that I should go to Melbourne now and enjoy my spring and summer there since Sydney is more bearable in the winter.

It was a unanimous vote so that's what I've decided to do.

I'm sure I would have been fine in Melbourne in the wintertime since the coldest it gets is the 40s or 50s [and it doesn't snow :o)], but it rains a lot in the winter months so this seems like the best option for me at the moment. While I've really grown to love Sydney and have met a ton of people in just these past couple weeks, not to mention the fact that it's slightly daunting to have to pack up and move to a whole new city again, I'm excited to be travelling to the state of Victoria for the first time. People have told me that Melbourne has a European feel to it and is gorgeous in the summertime so I'm positive I'll love it. I've also been assured that it shouldn't be too difficult to find a job down there either.

My greatest hope for today is that I don't have too much trouble boarding the coach with my very overweight luggage...