Iām cheating; I shouldnāt be writing here as I am not in Melbourne anymore. But our experiences with cities that we lived in, we traveled to, we loved is not bound by physical interactions only. In between my two flights from Helsinki to Aalborg I am sitting in Copenhagen airport, outside in cold, drinking my shitty Starbucks coffee, and imagining my Melbourne trying to sleep in the heat of the night, sweaty, salty, perhaps even smelly. Oh but no, you had your showers before bed, right? I donāt know how many hours of my life passed in airports, in all main cities between the antipodes and Europe over eleven and half years. Airports are in-between places, therefore, theyāre good for reflection. They donāt impose themselves on us emotionally like cities do. Before I moved to Melbourne I never imagined Iād fall in love with it. I never imagined itād hold a few of the people now I love most, or that Iād cry for days before and after making a decision to leave it for Helsinki. All of this happened in the course of three years. Melbourne has become the first place I loved living in. I still miss her, still think of her as Iām falling to sleep. Cities are like clothes we wear; they donāt stay on anyone else as they do on us, we become through wearing them, therefore we are a different person in every city. Now I am used to the Nordic silence, the beauty of frozen sea has replaced the beauty of ocean when I need solitude. The taciturn, elegant, distant yet direct and open Finns have replaced the loud, the lively, yet rather puzzling and diplomatic strayans if I may generalise. The coffee Iām afraid is a lost case; the best Helsinki coffee is still not good enough and yet Finns are the most coffee consuming society in the world. Helsinki is growing on me though. I may one day cry for Helsinki too. I wonder if Iāll ever move back to Melbourne. If I do I wonder if Iāll like it as much. Surely itāll be a different experience; Iāll have changed, acquainted with Nordic ways, maybe Iāll think it is ātoo muchā. Will the ice cream at Spring St grocer be as amazing? Will the NGV still be putting up gigs on Friday nights? Will Hosier Lane still be a tourist attraction? Will all the men I flirted with be still around? Thereāre breaking points of falling distant by way of falling apart. How far into the future will I again be a stranger for Melbourne? For now I can still feel itās pulse. Memories of joy and heartbreak are so fresh. But time never dies, right? And circle is not round.