I love the markets. This one was recommended everywhere, and I expected a little local market, but it was indeed big, all along the Salamanca Market front and up the street along the park.

Mostly local produce, berries, honey, vegetables, and local craft… Tasmania is big into wood, so there were lots of stands with amazing beautiful wooden things, form kitchen boards to full boats, made out of Tasmanian wood.

Elections are coming up, one of the last Labor governments is probably about to fall… So at one of the stands I had a chat with someone from the left socialists, pretty hopeless, but funny. They all look on how the Green Party will fare, a strong third force in the 25-member chamber, holding the balance between Labor and the Liberals.

The big parties had tried to push the Greens out by reducing the number of members of Parliament in the 1990s, making it more difficult for the small parties to win a seat, but the attempt backfired and the Greens are still strong in this environmentally conscious state.

There msut have been some sort of German immigration into Tasmania. I run into Bratwurst stands and Wurst and Spätzle all the time. In the local supermarket I found three different sorts of my favorite German pasta… there’s Sauerkraut and Blaukraut all over…

I sampled a few things (got some pizza for the trip up Mount Wellington), and then broke my no-souvernir-policy: I spent 10 Dollars on a thin woven cotton scarf in blue and beige… A scarf? The temperature was nearing 30 degrees… but I plan ahead, in New Zealand I will slowly move into Autumn, and then head into a Japanese spring in April, it might be cold…

And honestly, I could have used a scarf in Rio on those first colder days, would’ve spared me getting sick….