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The month was September and my daughter Dia just turned 4 months old. We arrived on the 18th where the airport wasn't entirely packed, and the weather wasn't particularly humid. Everything was set to excite the six of us who traveled together for the very first time: Me, Gempa, Dia, and our best friend Aji, his wife Nares, and their daughter Kenes. We were about to spend ten days in this beautiful city where Gempa used to live during his master's study back then. But this visit wasn't just another holiday: for Gempa and Aji, the trip will fulfill their annual tradition of queueing for the latest iPhone release.

Gempa has always been in the queueing crowd since the very first launch of the iPhone 3, and Aji joined him by the year 2012. Since then, they still went together every year as a duo Apple fanboy, with an occasional addition of someone from their mutual circle who wanted to taste the thrill of getting a new, fresh iPhone straight from day one. But none of the others ever come again for the next launch. Just Gempa and Aji, again, flying out to Singapore, each year. Nares and I did join the gank in 2017, only two months before my wedding, to get our hands in the late iPhone 8. Then the idea of us to start traveling together as a family was born. But then September 2018 came during my first pregnancy trimester, so Gempa and Aji fly back as a duo again. Until September 2019, we waited, and as we were about to travel with kids now, we thought: why don't we go to someplace new? When Gempa said "someplace", he actually meant that-some-place where he had queued alone before, as he suggested: Melbourne. It was such an easy decision. Who doesn't love Melbourne? With their infamous brunch and speciality coffee and a lot of different ways to say "breakfast"?

Well, I did, once. A couple years before I met Gempa, Melbourne was one place on earth I thought I would never visit again. Until my thoughts were proven inaccurate: I ended up visiting Melbourne again, and again, and again.

The melancholic Carlton Garden during golden hours (#shotoniPhone)

I still remember my first reaction when I touched down Tullamarine Airport back in 2010. There weren't so many people standing in front of the arrival gate, and I didn't have anyone picking me up. But as I walked past the sliding gate, a strong acidic smell of caffeine suddenly fill the open air. My eyes fully awake, and I wasn't feeling so alone anymore: at least there will be coffee. Or so I thought. Turned out, the city got such a fantastic option of great coffee, spread throughout every part of the city, from the locally grown espresso bit and down to the 7-eleven's bottled cafe latte. All good. I'm not a difficult person to please, though, and coffees are one of the things on earth I can easily enjoy beside books and hair salon (good hair days are basic needs and we will not argue about it).

The amazement of coffee was the first category in my long list of Melbournian Dictionary of Everything To Obsess, and then comes the second: B-R-U-N-C-H. Please remember that it was practically almost a decade from now — the first visit — and I have no idea what brunch actually was. Then I got to witness and experience the real, fascinating weirdness of eating breakfast that feels like some reduced lunch meals for the very first time in my life. So yeah, that part was particularly memorable. I recalled asking my friend Michelle (who, at that time, had lived there for about a year) this question: what do we must eat for brunch that makes one necessary? Her answer was, "not much, but enough." And that's what brunch do: it's fun, it's trendy, it has the energetic feel of eating delicious meals in the morning minus the half-awaken hassle. We were made to land directly into the perfect of pre-lunch emotional balance. Not too early, not too worn-out-by-midday. I liked it: for someone who sleeps mostly right before sunrise, brunch is just staggering. C'est Magnifique!

Post my first Melbourne visit, brunch and coffee was my thing. I had an absolute euphoric tendency to "crave" the daily caffeine intake, or, alternatively, to find the best place for brunch in Jakarta (During that time? There weren't so many options). But really, I did enlist those two new "habit" as part of my identity. Mostly because of my own life cycle during the moment, where coffee and past-9-AM-breakfast just fit naturally in between late morning and constant caffeine addiction. They were the good parts of my Melbournian adventure. The rest weren't so favourable, especially the part where I left the country with overweight luggage and swollen, post-overnight-crying, eyes. The year was 2011: in love and relationship, as it seemed, I wasn't particularly lucky.

Fresh flowers can be easily found around the famous Victoria Market, any day of the week.

But apart from that whole heartbroken history, Melbourne was spectacular in many ways. I spent my first Sunday on an impromptu meet up with two old friends who kindly took me on a train ride, straight to the Brighton beach. I couldn't forget walking past the tall bushes and got to see the famous colourful huts... with the whole area to be tourist-less, almost empty (this moment happened on a beautiful, bright weekday, pre-Instagram-era). We were feeling completely excited to share the shores with just a few others. I was wearing my light pink, polka-dot mini dress and a pair of vintage leather flats. The blue sky stretched infinitely above me. I asked one of my friends, the one who already married, this question: Once we got married, will the sky looks bluer, or less? He looked at me, slightly baffled, and said: What? It's gonna look the same. He might've said something else too but I no longer listened.

My mind would then wander to the idea of sharing the view with someone I care so much and not having to say a word to make him understand how easy it is to love me. Or maybe better: what if one day we'd finally meet and I don't even have to ask him to pick me? What if we'd just voluntarily choose one another over and over —and over again?

The tram appeared in front of my sight and people started to push themselves out of the crowd. We were back in the city again. With a friend from the old blogosphere, I went to take a look at Retrostar —one vintage store at Swanston Street she kept saying I must visit. We'd walk across the street and not only once we saw the appearance of a local vintage fashionista, in her tea-length floral dress or an oversized cardigan paired with a mini skirt —on top of the worn-out DocMarts if you like, the Tumblr-girl style. Vintage shopping (some may refer to this as "thrifting") has always been one of my priority during overseas travel, and Melbourne is the kind of city that adds an extra quirkiness or two onto the activity. The formerly mentioned Retrostar and Vintage Sole were my favourites in the CBD area. Then there are some that I recently visited and enjoyed: Brunswick Street's Hunter Gatherer and Clara Fox, Martin Fella Vintage at North Melbourne and also Koenji Vintage: the hidden vintage stall inside the lively South Melbourne Market.

To love vintage is easy. But the other forms of love, especially the one entangles to the existence of another human being... not that simple. I've left my heart twice in Melbourne: one for a Long-Distance-Relationship that gone bad, another one post a sour phone-call with my then partner (who decided to end our story via one-way communication, thank you). I didn't know why Melbourne had to be the place for me to deal with the inevitable feeling of being left behind (TWICE!), as if God wanted to throw an irony ("Fun trip in Melbourne, right? Cool! Here's some bad news though...").

Somehow I managed the parting. I did some regular post-breakup acts, like crying, smoking, locking myself in my room (and refusing to shower)... I also throw away tiny "relationship memorabilia" (who keep movie tickets from past dates anyway?), cut my hair short and months after I made myself whole again. I still hate Melbourne though, I thought that place was a loose end. I had no closure when I needed one, not even one to endure the haunting past memories. So I leave them hanging, till the year 2016 made its way into my awareness. The year when Gempa came into the subconscious realm of my unwell-being.

2018: We took a lot of round trip to Carlton Garden, really.

At the beginning of my developing-crush-period to Gempa, who spent a couple years living in Melbourne for his Master study, I thought: I can't be crossing path with this city again, can I? But the question got swept so quickly during my falling in (deep) love phase, as I couldn't care less about any other living creature in the whole universe who isn't named Gempa (and, specifically, looking as beautiful as he is). Apart from the fact that I'm such a hopeless romantic and Gempa is the most sensible man I ever met, to begin with, the nature of us as a social being has failed to keep us away from love. For me, especially, as bitter and as disappointing my coffee drink-in or takeaway could be, there's no way I will stop thinking about ordering another latte in my life. There are countless trials of knowing how many shots I can tolerate each day and how much milk I need for my homemade iced coffee to bring its most amazing flavours. As I repeat my orders (or recipe), I too learn to understand my taste better. To understand myself more. And the more I try, the more assured of my knowledge I will be.

So I guess that's the same with love, right? Even after the worst kind of breakup or the least pleasant date I ever underwent in my life, I still want to love again. And I also know that next time, I want to feel equally loved. The universe might have given me enough retrograde cycles in my life that it finally decided to send Gempa and me into the same orbit. We collide just as naturally, and love has conquered me once more. By the end of the year 2016, he took me on a trip to see Coldplay in Melbourne. To show me all of his favourite places during his stay there, to introduce me to the good friends he met along the way. And most importantly: to prove how Melbourne has let us both be in love again.

As I walked with Gempa, hand in hand, Lune's almond croissant stand crisp in my grip, I recall telling myself that it was never about the place: it was my way to find something to blame. And there will be no enough place or person in the entire world to make me relieved upon an unsettled feeling. But I can always try to love again, I can try to forgive. To give a closure instead of asking for one. To eat an overpriced meal and a cup of highly-acidic coffee while acknowledging my privileges —and trying my best not to take them for granted. Melbourne is the best city there is for many reasons. Still, for me, Melbourne is the most amazing for its unapologetic way of overflowing us with coffee, brunch, and the infinite need to always love again.

This time, I believe, the love between us will last forever.

Melbourne: In Case of Brunch, Coffee and The Need To Love Again