E is for...
Events! Melbourne's calendar is packed full of amazing things happening all year round, and this has been one of the real benefits of moving here. With Melbourne recently winning Most Livable City for the fifth year in a row, it's not hard to see why it's so easy to live here.
At any given time there are at least four major musicals on, this month Singing in the Rain and Rent will be two of them, as well as a host of international musicians jetting in to stage concerts. Amy Shumer popped in to promote her film Trainwreck and qucikly threw together a live performance that pretty much sold out before anyone even knew about it. The Melbourne Writer's Festival has just come to and end, featuring local and international writers, including our very own JM Coetzee! The Melbourne International Film Festival also closed recently, screening over 200 films in 17 days.
I've already mentioned about our how in the upcoming Melbourne Fringe Festival in an earlier post, and then directly after that the Melbourne Festival kicks off, showcasing curated theatre and performance from around Australia as well as some International pieces.
White Night Melbourne (pictured twice above) is something I can't wait to experience in February next year. The whole city shuts down for one night and buildings are lit up, perfomers are everywhere and the streets become a playground for all its people. Sounds spectacular!
Multicultural Arts Victoria is a brilliant government funded organisation that promotes all the cultures found in Melbourne, to promote inclusion and acceptance, as well as to explore and invest in the wide range of amazing cultures all mixing into a wonderful stew here in Australia. Most recently, Fed Square held a Mexican Festival, full of delicious food, arts and crafts and performances by Mexican people who now call Melbourne home.
We watched performances and speeches in honour of Nelson Mandela on 17 July at the very same place, and it was great to be back to celebrate another (completely delicious) culture.
So of course there are all these wonderful mainstream events, not to mention more sport than you can shake a stick at, but there are also some pretty weird and eccentric events too. Take, for example, Slide Melbourne, where a giant water slide gets erected along Lonsdale road for a whole, gloriously soggy day, for all to enjoy. Now that sounds, and looks, like fun! Sunscreen compulsory.
If that isn't enough to make you spend every other day in the city, there's always the very active protest scene. Most recently, when the Victorian government decided to send cops into the city to check people's visa validity, the people of Melbourne lost their patience and congregated outside Flinders Street Station en masse to say "Absolutely Not!". It caused such a stink that within two hours the government issued a statement to say they would be calling the visa checks off and sorry for their ill-advised decision. Respect, people of Melbourne. That's what democracy is all about. And if you don't know, public hatred for Tony Abbott reached boiling point this week and his own party booted him and elected a new head. So now we have a new Prime Minister (again). But the reaction to public sentiment here is pretty amazing, and a shining example to my home South Africa, especially in the wake of the trending #DearMrPresident hashtag yesterday. It gives me hope when countries can listen to their citizens. Now let's get moving on climate change Australia!!