Mel, syd or bris?

Hi peachykeen and welcome to Expat.com!

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Francesca

I lived in Melbourne 27 years and Sydney for 7 years.  I have never lived in Brisbane but know a couple of people that moved there.  The feedback I got was that the food is horrible and people are a bit rough around the edges and both people moved to the Gold Coast after about a year of living in Brisbane.  However,  I personally have only been in Brisbane for 1 day soooo....

For Fine Arts I would suggest Melbourne and second Sydney.  Healthcare really depends on where you live in each city and what the local hospitals are like.  Different hospitals will recieve different funding and then you have private hospitals.

If you and your son hate rugby then definately not Brisbane or Sydney as they both love it there.  Melbourne would be your best bet there also as it is the sports capital of Australia (as well as the fashion).  Melbourne has a large population of Greeks and Italians which promote soccor but it might be hard to find a real international game on TV.

Sydney has good public transport and Melbourne isn't that bad anymore (it was shocking when I used to live there but I visited Melbourne last September and was quite impressed).  I was actually surpised how much Melbourne had "matured" from when I used to live there and there were a lot of Americans living there for some reason... weird. The big problem with Melbourne is the weather,  expect a lot of cloudy days and "drizzly" rain (around 9 months of the year).  I suppose its a lot like England.  Melbourne also has its suburbs sprawled out over vast distances so you can live almost 2 hours away from the city and still say you are from Melbourne (:  (it apparantly has a great freeway there now though).

I would always recommend Sydney to anyone as it has great weather, people,  scenery and things to do.  The only drawback is that the property prices in Sydney are obscene which is why I left.

From what I've heard I would recommend Sydney, there are more activities, the city is livelier and the variety in food, people, places is great, u can also live in very nice suburbs where u can raise ur kids safely, and where they both public and private school and STILL be quite close from the city , like for example mosman is a very nice family area with good school, VERY good public transport, nices view and beaches and the city is only 15/20 minute by bus!! The choice between the three cities is a very subjective choice and people would tell u what they think about it but u might think differently if u were there, so if u never went to any of these cities, at least, Sydney , because of its size and variety is,I think, a safe choice cause u'll always find something which correspond to ur lifestyle

thanks for your replies. very much in line with my findings. have found a number of interesting sites with real-time cost of living assesments (ie. not the paid-for big mac measuring tallies) and they put oz cities in shockingly high rank. vancouver, which is amazing and might i add mere hours from seattle (: looked positively cheap by comparison. when in van i thought that - a decent price correction on housing and vancouver becomes near mortal cost of living wise. and no crazy spiders.  i have been bitten twice in oz - yes people live there their entire lives and never see one. i, on the other hand, visit, have been bitten twice and oddly enough have never seen offender. i have also had several exciting close calls (including a bite in nz which had me hospitalized) they must like me. those photos of webs on riverbanks in queensland didnt half put me off.