Off to an interesting start...

Well, the first few days in Tasmania have been interesting. We spent two days in the town of Hobart before starting a tour around the rest of the island. Hobart is a quaint town with docklands and boats and lots of seafood. There is also a famous outdoor market on Saturdays that offered me the chance to make my requisite vacation jewelry purchases. But perhaps the most entertaining part of Hobart was meeting a couple of Australian bikers belonging to the motorcycle club that rivals the Hell's Angels. I must say they had fine taste in wine.

And today our Tassie tour started with a bang. Our tour guide for the first part of the trip is, well, odd. He means well, but has a way of saying and asking the most awkward things. He also apparently thinks I look exactly like Britney Spears. From the way he says it, I can tell he means it as a compliment... Our "tour group" consists of me, my friend I'm traveling with, our tour guide, and a man from Sri Lanka who barely speaks and will only be with us for the first three days. Our guide was kind enough to play Lady Gaga for us as we drove along (which led to only one awkward moment when he asked me specifically to explain what a "disco stick" is - I managed to change the subject as quickly as possible).

Our first night we have stopped in what might loosely be called a town. After a quiet group dinner and a trek in the rain up a muddy hill past a field of goats, our only real option for entertainment was snooker and ping pong. That is until we discovered the hotel's fabulously bizarre movie collection. The winner out of all the available titles was "C.I.A. Codename: Alexa," a stellar action flick from 1992 starring Lorenzo Lamas and O.J. Simpson. I think this might be a fair indication of what our nights will be like for the week to come.

However, we did get our first taste of the beautiful Tasmanian scenery today, which bodes well for the rest of our trip. And it really is the odd moments that keep traveling interesting and serve as funny stories down the road...