Flying to Tasmania

The Lady will be attending a conference in Hobart, Tasmania (one of the smaller states in Australia), Monday through Thursday. None of us have actually been to Hobart before, so The Kid and myself are coming along. I'll be looking after The Kid for most of the conference days -- The Lady is some sort of delegate, and thus has to attend several importnat meetings and official functions. The exception is that if there's the occassional session that's of interest to me, The Lady will look after The Bub during that period and I'll do a ''day registration''.

Flying in to Hobart, we were struck at how ''small-time'' it is. Even though it's the capitol city of Tasmania, there are no ''tubes'' that connect the side of the airplane to the waiting area. Instead, you walk across the tarmac(?), and climb up a portable stairway -- just like in Casablanca!!!.


Also, when your luggage arrives, it doesn't come down a chute, to then slowly spin around on a carousel or conveyor belt. Insted, you just wait around behind a yellow rope in a garage-like area; the little tractor with three trailers of luggage drives up, and parks in front of the waiting passengers; and the rope is removed and everyone scrambles to grab their bags off the carts.

Not a bad thing -- pleasantly small-timey, in my opinion.


Another thing that amused me was this sign, near the luggage pick-up area:


Apparently, it's eleven bucks for adults, but five bucks per child, and/or per pen. Pretty pricey, considering I had three pens in my pocket, and another three or four in my knapsack!!!

Actually, ''pens'' is short for ''Pensioners.'' In the U.S., the sign would've said "Senior Citizens."


I spent the whole ride from the airport to the hotel thinking to myself ''I **must** move here; I **sooo** want to move here!'' The downtown area is small and spiffy, and the scenery was a mix of mountains and water that reminded me of the Pacific Northwest. The mountains were a little small, by our standards -- but at least you could see them in the distance, rather than the Brisabane-area vague rolly-ness.



The above shots are travelling from the airport to the downtown area. Not really **Seattle**-like -- but certainly it reminded me of southwest Washington State, or maybe Oregon.


Another thing that contributed to the ''Seattle-like'' vibe was the tendency to build up the sides of hills. Reminded me of being in Seattle and looking across Lake Union(?) at Queen Anne Hill.



These are some shots from outside our hotel.



The boats struck me as rather ''New England-y.'' And the overcast skies really made me feel at home. :)


--GG