Last week I posted my piece about The City Awards, a list of the best and worst things about places that I have been to. The list seems to have been generating a bit of debate, in the week since I posted it, so I feel its necessary to explain a couple of my choices that might have raised a couple of eyebrows…

French sandwiches and Italian coffee?

A few people questioned my choices of France for the best sandwiches, and Italy for the best coffee. To be honest, I’m not a huge sandwich fan, and I’m not even mad about baguettes – often I find them too crusty to be enjoyable…

Until I went to France. I ate my way around Paris buying delicious, perfectly-baked baguettes with creative fillings from aromatic boulangeries around the City of Lights… and I couldn’t get enough! Not only are they tasty and filling, but they’re the most economical meal in a notoriously expensive city, all while taking in a bit of the local cuisine.

For coffee, it doesn’t get much better than Italy. I’ve heard people say that the coffee in Italy was nothing special, but I haven’t travelled any place where the espresso was so consistently flavourful and well made.

Australia is unsafe and unchill?

Naming East Gippsland as the unsafest place I’ve ever been, and Australians as the “most unchill” people I know, was always going to be contentious. However in my experience I find that to be the truth.

It’s not that there’s nowhere more dangerous than East Gippsland, but in a piece based on my experiences, I had to go on what I had seen with my own eyes. Unfortunately, of the three times I have visited East Gippsland, each time I was made to feel like an unwelcome outsider.

And when I say unwelcome outsider, I mean like, seriously unwelcome – people looking me and my family up and down, comments like “You’re from the city, right?” with a certain disdain, being surveilled while the solitary patron in a pub to make sure I bought something before I used the washroom, and driving through a town where locals were polishing their rifles on their front porches… nowhere else in my travels has made me feel so uncomfortable.

And unchill Australians? I don’t know any other nation that gets so uptight about food (gluten-free, vegan, paleo, free range, organic, locally sourced, dairy free…); race and identity (everyone is open-minded until we start talking about migration) and civic duty (a nation of do-gooders).

Handsome Pakistanis and impolite Dutch people?

Are Pakistanis the most handsome in the world? I’ll leave that one up to you. A lot of my male friends are Pakistani, so I’ll give this award to them. Also, once I stood next to Pakistani television presenter and actor Ahsan Khan who looks like a buff wax figure, but he’s actually also a really down-to-earth nice guy.

Some people just seem to have it all, don’t they? As for the Dutch, I might clarify my terms here; I feel that the famously direct Dutch people come across as impolite, but I’m well aware that there is no intention of rudeness; quite the opposite. As far as I’ve been told, “Dutch directness” is trying to be polite – no bullshit, just the truth. That’s fair enough… but I still like my small talk to be sugar-coated.

Would you like to hear the stories behind any of my other choices?

Check the original article then comment below – there are lots of stories to be told!