The Land of Eh

Robert & I zipped up to Victoria for the weekend and had a great time up there. I had never been to Canada, so it was definitely a wonderful initiation to the land of "Eh".

We took the ferry from Port Angeles over Friday night. We were a little worried that we weren't going to make the ferry because, on the way up, there was a guy hauling a boat that had broken down in the middle of the road. Being that it's only two-lane for most of the trip, it backed up traffic for about four miles. That was a little scary since we had a ferry reservation for 5:15 and neither of us had any idea about what exactly we needed to do when we got there.

We got there on time, although a little later than what we were hoping for, and everything went pretty smoothly from there. It takes about an hour to cross, in good weather, and we had good weather. =)

We got off the boat in a foreign country ! The harbor at Victoria is bee-you-tee-ful. There are flowers everywhere -- it looks like the harbor is a big water cupcake with these multicolored sprinkles all over the edges.

First stop was the Penny Lane Sweet Shop which is like an old-fashioned British candy shoppe. It's pretty tiny, but extremely well-stocked. They have chocolate bars, toffees, and hard candies in glass apothecary jars. The staff was very friendly and very knowledgeable about their stocks -- gave us a couple of recommendations on chocolate bars. They also have dark chocolate Toblerone, which is fairly difficult to find in the states. What can I say ? It's no more than 25 yards from the debarkation point. Really !

We left Penny Lane and dragged our luggage up the hill to the hotel -- approximately 6-7 blocks. We stayed at the Chateau Victoria, which is not completely "downtown", but certainly close enough to everything we were interested in. After stashing our stuff, we went out poking around. We did a lot of walking, found all kinds of little shops and then stumbled on the mall. Bay Centre is a four-story mall, very nice, lots of shops. We were pretty tired by then, so we just wandered up to the food court and ate a little supper before hitting the sack.

Next morning, we (okay, I) slept in a little bit. (It's a VACATION !) When I got up around nine, we went back out poking around. We hit Miniature World, which is very interesting. It's a huge collection of different types of miniatures -- from dollhouses to Civil War and Revolutionary War figures painted and arranged on "battlefields". There's also an enormous diorama which shows the history of the Canadian Pacific Railway. They also have the world's smallest working sawmill. (Fire regulations prevent it from operating in the display, but they have a video which shows what everything does). The sawmill was probably my very favorite part. Miniature World also has some Wild West dioramas as well as some of the cheesiest "fantasy" scenes evah. Snow White's dwarves did not have a "diamond mine" made entirely of glitter and cheap drugstore costume jewelry. They didn't and you can't make me believe they did ! Nonetheless, I give the entire venue a 93 -- because you sure can dance to it. =P

We wandered around the "downtown tourist trap area" for a while longer and grabbed a little brunch at Sam's Deli (they have "Samwiches" !) before I couldn't bear it any longer and we popped into Munro's. Munro's is a wonderful old bookstore with what appears to be the original wooden floors -- think the Sparenberg building. Since this was my "birthday" trip, Robert had called ahead and reserved a copy of the new Harry Potter book. Since I got it in Canada, the cover and the size of the book is different from the one published down here. The bookstore was also having a little promotion where you could go over to the "Headmistress's Office" and have a certificate with your name on it signed by the Headmistress of Hogwarts. It was designed for the kiddos, so of course I went !

We also poked around the Royal BC Museum right quick. We didn't think we had time to give the museum the attention it deserved, so we hit the gift shop to see the highlights.

With Harry Potter burning a hole in my pocket, we hiked back to the hotel for a little light reading and a nap. I did the reading and Robert took a little nap. After I read for a while, I finally fell asleep as well, and didn't get up until about 6. By that time, we were fairly hungry again, so we set off to find food. I wasn't starving, so it was hard to decide. We had our choice of The Keg -- a steak house, an Indian food place, Chinese, Thai, a place called the Noodle Box, Smitty's (looks like an IHOP), pizza, and a few other places -- and that's all within about six blocks ! After meandering a while, we finally agreed on pizza so we grabbed it to go. I read all through supper and read on till about 2:00am, when I finished the book. Poor Robert ! He had to listen to me gasp and exclaim over the plot twists (although I did try very hard to be as quiet as possible.) We finally both hit the sack for good around 2:30.

Sunday morning, we went ahead and got up about 9-10 and took a quick shower before going back out. We managed to score a table at Smitty's (a Canadian institution !) and verified that it is like a Denny's. Yum ! Smoked salmon Eggs Benedict ! We then went out and visited the Victoria Bug Zoo. I thought it might be a little creepy (and it is, but just a little bit). They have LOTS of bugs and most of them are not scary. =P Robert and I were the only grownups there without kids and we did just fine (until Robert scared me and I, in turn, accidentally scared a little girl there). No. There are no details. Just. . . yeah, no. Just know that the ant farm is SO worth a look along with all the other stuff. Leaf bugs, stick bugs, beetles, leetle spiders, BIG spiders, scorpions (and a vinegarone ! They call it a "whip scorpion".), praying mantises (manti ?), and. . . cockroaches (eeeeeee).

It was about 11-11:15 when we got out of the "zoo", so I realized I had to get some shopping done. =) Robert got dragged around to a whole bunch of little stores and I did some Christmas shopping. No hints, y'all ! =P When we were done there, it was almost time to head to the ferry terminal, so we hiked back to the hotel and packed up again. The shuttle driver was so wonderful !

The boat took longer going back because there was a huge fog bank, but we got home and were immediately set upon by the Whiny Twins (tm). Jinx is pretty used to us taking weekend trips, but I guess S'prise didn't understand that we were coming back. We have been nearly overwhelmed by the "attention".

Stuff that didn't make it in this missive:

: Nightmares -- "interesting" horror shop
: The fire juggler -- there were two that we saw, one is hilarious
: The mermaid with the accordion
: Darth Vader with his violin
: The drum and xylophone quintet on the street
: Roger's Chocolates -- Victoria creams
: The mime. No, I'm not kidding. Weeeeird.


All for now.

Thoughts ?