melbourne

This is going to be a crazy whirlwind tour of Australia, with just a few days in any given stop. Impressions of the first stop, Melbourne, was of a really nice city. Especially at night, the downtown is beautiful, with the lights of the buildings reflecting off the river running through the center. It has a ton of public transport options, including a large tram network and free city center tourist trains and buses. It also has several different neighborhoods with different feels, good nightlife, a ton of museums and cultural options. A good city to visit.

It also feels more like the States than anything has since I left.
Perhaps it's just that I've forgotten exactly what an American city is like after a year in New Zealand, but Melbourne is big enough (about 3 million people) to compare with a fair-size US city, and it looks just like one as well.
No where in New Zealand felt like a big US city. A lot of NZ felt like the States - the same fast-food chains, the same type of stores - but a lot of it didn't. Everything was on the wrong scale - even the big cities just weren't really big. Sydney has more people than the whole of NZ. Perhaps that's why in Melbourne, and even Sydney, what I've seen of it, I feel more like I'm back in the States. It's the first time I've been in areas of similar scale.