Victoria

Tuesday, April, 20th, 2010

The next couple days passed quickly. I ventured downtown a lot by myself. I was giving Simon some time to get some homework done. Also, I wanted to go do touristy things that I knew would probably annoy someone who had lived there for years. 

I found the downtown mall and got to know it quite well. There was this wicked rock store inside that all sorts of gothic and punk rock inspired goods. Everything I wanted there was sold out in my size :( But definitely the best store in the mall. I ended up adding a couple things to my already overflowing suitcase as well as buying a wicked purse, that's a bit like an early 90s style mini-backpack. Remember those!? It's awesome! I've used it everyday since.

One day I sat for an hour or so at the Parliament buildings. I didn't want to go inside, but I quite enjoyed the view from the lawn.

I also went to see the Museum of British Columbia. The first exhibit was my favourite. It was exhibit all about climate change. There were a tonne of interactive displays to play with. Most of them demonstrated the changes that will occur in Western Canada over the next forty years. That exhibit went hand in hand and blended well into their wildlife exhibit. This one was full of taxidermy. There was displays that were set up exactly like a scene on the beach or in the forest. These displays were full of plants and animals, and lots of posters explaining what thing was in each scene.  This ran into a mock submarine, and demonstrated all sorts of undersea life. The submarine was great for kids, there was a giant fish tank with over twenty different species of fish inside. There were lots of game-like interactive modules,  a steering wheel, submarine binoculars, and even the thing you pull on to make the ship go faster.

They had another more historic exhibit all about the natives and early settlers of BC. This showed a lot of ancient totem poles (actual totems), cave scrapings and drawing, old pottery, clothing, rituals. The was a life-size log cabin and life size igloo. They showed the different layers of the Igloo and how it was built.

The last exhibit started by showing Victoria through the last hundred years. It had different displays for every ten years. I wanted to curl up inside this one, it was so nalotalgic for me. Do you remember this stuff? Skateboards were one side curved up, floppy disks, reboots: Megabyte, Hexidecimal, and Enzo, The X-Files (there is the script from the pilot hidden in there), Super Nintendo and Mario bros., Cellular telephones, star wars trading cards, dock martins, pogo, teenage mutant ninja turtles, pikachu, platform shoes, the list goes on and on…..

After the display cases with the centuries, there was a life-size replica of Victoria in the early 1900s. They had re-created the cobble streets and filled all the shops so that when one looked in you could see everything that was in there as it would have been in the early 1900s. My favourite was the apothecary, full of tiny little bottles, and the doctors tools clearly displayed in the window. They had little alleys, bedrooms, a train station, a boat, a fishery, a mine, a sawmill, a hotel, a cinema (playing silent Charlie Chaplain movies).

Simon also took me to his nearby mall one day so we could grab some food and what-nots. Trying on funny hats, yes I was!

We ended up practically chilling all week, going to different pubs each night. I had a great time with Simon. We even had some early nights. One night we were tired and had planned to go out, but we quickly realized that we were not match for the absinthe swirling in our heads. Simon passed out, and I piled all the couch cousins on top of him. The I jumped on top! Just like my brother and I used to do when we were little. He didn't like that too much, but didn't really move either.

I wanted to stay and hang out more in Victoria with Simon and his friends, but I knew I had to be moving along. Simon had an exam to write, and I had some more cities to see.