Hobart, Tasmania

I don't know why, but for years I had Tasmania on the brain. Even before the NYT came out with an article in 2006 that showed pictured of a great and spiky otherworld wilderness. I'd heard a lot about Tasmania like I'd heard a lot about Portland: Clean, nice people, good food, outdoor markets, a relaxed pace, humbling landscapes.

And it is a lot like that, at least in the cities. Tasmania, at least what we saw, is a LOT like Portland. While I didn't see any waxed mustaches or skinny jeans (and THANK YOU GOD FOR THAT), the general vibe, and even some of the landscape, was very much similar to around here.

I'm not sure how I felt about that. I supposed if I want otherworldly, go back to the areas outside Vegas, or eastern Oregon. Or Iceland. Or plenty of places in this world. And I liked Hobart, and I liked Launceston, and I really liked Tasmania as a whole (again what I saw of it--even though the island is the size of West Virginia, more than half is protected wilderness), but in general I didn't get that different of a vibe than I did in Portland.

But I love Portland, so to transfer that, I loved Tasmania, too. I thought I would fall in love with it and want to move there, like I did Portland, but I didn't. We kind of joke-but-not-really that we view certain vacations as retirement curiosity planning (or at least next step planning) and I thought I'd get that from Tassie, but...I guess we're not done with Portland yet.

Anyway! I've rambled far too long.

(By the way, Tasmania is part of Australia. I've been asked this by people. It's part of Australia, just another state. Sort of like how Hawaii is part of the U.S. You don't say, "We're visiting the U.S. and Hawaii," and you don't say "We're visiting Australia and Tasmania.")

The day we got to Hobart, it was freezing. They say in Hobart you can get four seasons in one day--and I don't think that's too different from Portland. But when we got there it was the coldest day of the trip. I'd say it was maybe 55 at best. On went the fleece.

We got there on a Friday afternoon and didn't do much except explore a little bit and go out and buy more vitamins since we (Justin) left them all in our hotel room in Melbourne. Kudos to the staff at Melbourne's Crown Metropole, who recovered it and sent it ahead to our next hotel in Hobart. But we didn't know this at the time and thought we had more than $100 in various vitamins and supplements and medications lost.

ANYWAY. The next day was Saturday, which is when the Salamanca Market takes place in downtown Hobart. Imagine Portland Saturday farmer's market int he same place as Portland's Saturday market, BUT with stuff you'd actually WANT TO BUY. Yeah! It was super-cool. And enormous. And the sun was out. And it was getting warmer. YAY for Saturdays in Hobart!

Justin giving props to Pendleton:





Hilarious shirts:

Nature's bounty:

 As in "Who ate all the ___________?"

Too warm for the Pendleton:

The blue in the sky was shaped a little like Tasmania, I thought. It was a happy sky.

On the banks of the river:

After this, we decided to go to MONA (Museum of Old and New Art). I'm not normally a museum fan, and if you, like me, aren't, you will STILL love this. Like, I went a little insane for it. More in next post.  

And my computer is kind of crashing so I'm going to take a break for a while. It's been sort of a lazy weekend and I need to see that through.