Having on average the most clement weather of all the major cities in Australia, Melbourne is a bloody gothic looking city with lots of laneways in the inner city areas. It has unbelievable amounts of low density urban sprawl. Melbournians have a bit of a reputation for smoking a few too many cones, which is largely deserved, and for wearing a lot of black clothes, also true. It was the capital of the federation before we kicked the pollies out. For comedy, live music, culture, getting a decent feed, nightlife or any other big-city way you might want to spend your free time. Melbourne hosted the 1956 olympic games, remembered by many as the "friendly games", even though there were a fair few defections etc. . Like the rest of australia, melbourne is populated by a good deal of those of british and irish stock, but has a large number of people of german, dutch, italian, chinese and vietnamese descent. There is a strong koori community in Northcote, and many africans of various national ancestry in the inner northwest. Melbourne is the most greek city outside of greece (Experience has shown me however that the average greek in athens generally has a much better better grasp of english than first generation greeks in melbourne). Most of the swedes seem to have at least one family member working for Ericsson. The true heart of Australia, it is looked down upon by sydney, who are just jealous because it always rains in sydney, but recognised by the rest of the nation as so.