Alive in the world's most liveable city

by Sam Bowden (Australia)

I didn't expect to find Australia

See, the thing you need to understand is that Australia is far away from everyone, and sometimes it's very obvious. Take cocaine, for example. If you're buying cocaine in Europe, you can pretty much bet that whatever bag you purchase is going to have a substantial level of purity. In Australia, however, it takes so long to get here that when it is here, anyone distributing it needs to make it last as long as possible, for the most amount of money. Having been to Europe and experienced the alternative first-hand, I needed to talk myself down from any high expectations I was wearing as myself and four of my closest friends disappeared down to Melbourne for a bucks weekend. Melbourne is often referred to as "the world's most liveable city" due to some pseudo-competition it won a few years back. I've always thought that to be an interesting description because if a place is "liveable" it doesn't necessarily make it "nice." A one-bedroom apartment in Kabul with a bucket instead of plumbing is "liveable" but that doesn't mean you'd move there after University so you can explore your decoupage career. Melbourne feels less like Australia's best city and more like the shittiest one in Europe. In saying this, however, Melbourne does have its salvations. One of the defining characteristics of Melbourne is the genuinely enchanting laneways. Any sidestep off Chapel St is bound to have you stumbling into some technicolour mural that's too busy making a strong social justice point to be truly appreciated for the artistic skill of the image itself. It is - very genuinely - a lovely city to get lost in. One of the other benefits of the laneways, however, is the ease it provides to a drug deal. Which brings me back to the point about cocaine. After watching my friend Tom (the best man of the upcoming wedding) purchase a few bags off a homeless man/barista, we stumbled out of the laneway and rejoined the group. Waiting patiently in another laneway was the buck who, although not royalty, demanded to visit the Gin Palace before the evening had completely lost its light. A drinking hole of moderate extravagance; you wouldn't be amiss in finding every wannabe Hemingway sitting in the corner on a burgundy plush, lamenting their lover as they wait for their wife. The barman - a gentleman called Ernesto - smiled at us through a moustache that had more wax in it than his ears. Nice fellow though, and as we got increasingly hammered off gin martinis, Ernesto continued to turn a blind eye to how raucous we were getting in the corner. I believe a pillow was thrown across the bar at a gentleman that looked like the Monopoly man. Not proud of that. Every now and then, Tom, the buck and I would disappear off to the bathroom, do our substandard cocaine and return to the group a little perkier than when we left. The charlie, in fact, may have been the only thing keeping us from crying, what with the mass consumption of gin and our collective childhood trauma. After being politely asked to leave by Ernesto, we stumbled out and edged closer to the Yarra River, intent on a swim. Lost and loving it, we slowly became aware that Tom was holding a six-pack of cage-free eggs. We must've stopped into a 7-11 because I was holding a pie, and the buck was halfway through a Gatorade. Before we could ask why he was holding the eggs, Tom sent four of the six eggs flying into the side of a moving police car and ran down an alleyway. The police lights went on as the buck yelled "scatter!" and we all bolted down our own laneway before you could say "decaf latte." To be fair, we'd done this before. Sweating in a whiskey bar and awaiting a text or a call or even a cop, I finally appreciated the importance of weak cocaine. "Thank God it wasn't any stronger," I thought, or I might've stayed and dared the cops to shoot me. Or worse, actually gone for a swim in the Yarra. I guess the city is quite "liveable" after all.