** La
suerte de la fea comes from the Spanish refrain “la suerte de la fea, la
guapa la desea” meaning that the pretty girl envies the luck of the uglier
girl, who somehow manages to have better luck with men, much to the pretty
girl’s annoyance.
When I considered the possibility of coming to Australia, I didn’t want to come to Melbourne. I wanted to come to Sydney.
Well let’s see what happens with Sydney. Let’s see if after seeing it, I agree with the opinions on it of the Melbournians (or with what the ugly but clever sister says about it: pretty but stupid). Perhaps this way I’ll understand the refrain from which the title of this entry has been taken from. I have never known if it means we envy what we don’t have or if it was just way of making ugly people feel better about themselves by telling them that least they are enviable.
When I considered the possibility of coming to Australia, I didn’t want to come to Melbourne. I wanted to come to Sydney.
Melbourne has millions of inhabitants.
Everyone I have known there has spoken badly of Sydney. And many have employed
the metaphor of sisters or ugly sisters or brothers (depending on the gender of
the person talking). The sister metaphor explained: it turns out that Sydney and Melbourne are
like two sisters. Sydney is the sister whose genes make her easier to like at
first glance- she’s pretty and attractive. Melbourne, well as we know, is the
opposite. Well, the ugly sister Melbourne works hard all her life and becomes
the girl with good public transport, pretty meadows where instead of cows
grazing, cricket is played, and all the other quirks that make you think that
she is an attractive city rather than a beautiful one. She is the one with whom
you want to rent/ or where you want to rent. Meanwhile, Sydney devoted herself
to sunbaking while reading frivolous
magazines, scaring away tourists that want to chat her up, and has organized Olympics ( after which, everyone
tells me, Sydney has not lifted a finger).
And the tale of the two sisters invariably
ends like this: you marry Melbourne, not Sydney (well, Sydney can at times be
cruder)
Isn’t it charming that we are so ignorant
of our “neighbor” in all corners of the world? I have heard the same story in
thousands of towns and cities and in the little towns that believe they are the
“cities” of Spain.
Before going to Sydney, I will say that Melbourne
is not the ugly sister. Maybe it’s not very photogenic. It has a good profile,
a river, a funny freckle (a pastel -coloured train station as shown in the
second photo), it looks good at night; but it never ended up looking attractive
in the other photos (so I haven’t posted them here). But afterwards you
discover a thousand little things about it little by little. Loads of very cool
graffiti (which is called ‘urban art” in the tourist guides and I’ll leave
these for another day), fun parks, hundreds of kilometres of bikeways ,
fantastic cultural centres, a couple of
very decent urban beaches, lots of cozy places to have a drink. You spend the
day with the word “pleasant” in your mouth. Still, it is expensive and it lacks
places to just have a caña* (let’s not even talk about tapas).
Well let’s see what happens with Sydney. Let’s see if after seeing it, I agree with the opinions on it of the Melbournians (or with what the ugly but clever sister says about it: pretty but stupid). Perhaps this way I’ll understand the refrain from which the title of this entry has been taken from. I have never known if it means we envy what we don’t have or if it was just way of making ugly people feel better about themselves by telling them that least they are enviable.
*pint
