"Thank you, #Melbourne."

It's the people. The genuine sincerity. The fact that you've been smiling since the minute you jump in the car at the airport down to the last ride back to catch your flight home. The inspiring hosts. The people and their dreams. The strangers you meet and laugh with in the train. The random friends who click right away. It's the four-seasons-in-a-day weather. It's the delicacies, the incomparable desserts and coffee. It's the Black Keys who was freaking amazing right up on the hill. It's the Spanish Doughnuts. It's the six-dollar lunch and dinner. It's the Korean restaurant tucked inside the alley that makes you lick your lips and your stomach grumble just thinking about their chicken steak and honeyed chicken.

It's the routine simplicity.  It's the easiness--the laid-back happiness. The feeling of not having any burden, the urge to throw your head back and laugh openly. It's the exploring, miles and miles of beautiful scenery, beautiful people, the feeling that you may just belong. That you may just found your key to simple happiness. It's the Paper Kites. The hushed silence during Bloom. It's the farmers' market, the endless rows of green goods and delicatessen to spoil your tastebuds. The endless opportunities for your alone time in the kitchen. It's the hospitality. The surprising friendliness. The Yarra River, where time seems to stop. It's the Boatbuilders Yard. The sunset and the countless adorable dogs passing by. It's the vintage bookstores. The all-under-five-dollars book sales. It's Lord of the Fries at midnight. The cookware shop that makes you resist letting out gasps as your eyes fall on all these equipment and ingredients you thought only existed in TVs, causing you to actually bit your lip and put your hands behind your back to resist buying all of them.

It's Sunshine Rd. Even the taxi drivers who ripped you off. It's Craigieburn and its inside jokes. It's Prahran Market and the rows of beautiful homemade bread. It's the gelato in Lygon Street, the way everyone dressed up for that particular day. It's the five-dollar pizza near Corner Hotel at 1 a.m. It's the underground lounge and its own randomness. It's the "Buavita". It's the  alleyways, promising an endless row of cafes, bookstores, shops, causing you to resist sitting down at one of the chairs and pull out your notebook. It's the vast, lush city parks and gardens that make you smile just imagining how deliriously happy they make people feel just by lazying around in it.

It's the dinner in the park. It's the conversations as the cold started to sting your fingertips. The long walk just to eat ice cream on the bench. The strange sensation of opening up. It's the Burch & Purchese Sweet Studio. The freaking William Angliss Institute. It's dipping your feet into the green grass you've been dreaming for years; a step closer to your goal. The things you learn from your old and new friends. It's about learning about people who love what they're doing in life; who thank Melbourne for changing the way they live. The city who shapes them into a much better person, providing them with doors and doors of opportunities to achieve their goals. It's the laughter in people's eyes. It's the ultimate comfort, the warmth, the mystery, the unspoken affection all rolled into one.

It's the urge to step back and see things in a bigger view. It's the slap in the face to awaken you, make you realize what (and who) are important and what are not. It's the confirmation that everything is indeed possible if you stop sitting around and start to do something about it. The confirmation that you should indeed ignore the haters, the ones who think you'll never make it out there, and start following your conscience--a reminder that you do have one.

It's Flinders St. It's the vintage clothing store in the alley. The rooftop beer garden, the city lights . The feeling so calm you can hear your own heartbeat. It's the constant happiness in your chest for eight days in a row.

It was the best trip of my life.

***

A Girl You Should Date

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

– Rosemarie Urquico –