Melbourne is my home town

A large sprawling modern city

A beautiful city in many ways.

A CULTURAL CITY

With a strong sense of the Arts

Offering major exhibitions

 

Both inside and out of the galleries

A Sporting and Multicultural City

Melbourne is a great sporting city,

Hosting an Olympic Games, ,the home of the Australian Tennis Open, Australian Grand Prix, Melbourne Cup, the Boxing Day Cricket Test, the MCG and the birthplace of Australian Football.

But it is community level football that in many ways captures the multicultural nature of Melbourne. Where the locals teams include the players with heritage from every continent – migrants old and new and indigenous Australians all in the game.

And on the sidelines the Lebanese mothers wear their Hijabs in the home teams colours.

 

Sometimes there is a special moment, a wonderful day , that makes one reflect on where you are, where you spend most of your time and the special things about it.

It was a early autumn day in Melbourne.

I had been waiting to find the time to go to the National Gallery to see the wonderfully curated exhibition of the works or Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei.

A free Saturday morning gave me the opportunity.

Then in the afternoon my son played footy in a team that embodies the multicultural spirit of Melbourne a team made up of local people whose heritage stemmed from Polynesia, the Middle East, Europe, Africa and captain coached by an indigenous Australian.

As I stood at my sons game and ate a kebab wrapped in a European  style bun, talking to the retired primary school teacher who had taught “80% of the kids” I reflected on how special my home town is.