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.

I've been enjoying too much and not updating this blog!!

         April, 15th, 2010

         Victoria passed by in a blur. 

        The ferry and bus ride there was a couple hours that seemed to whirl by. I definitely noticed how green everything became and how quickly it did so. However, it was hard to see much from the ferry just because it was overcast and so rainy. (Oh Vancouver!)

         I remember sitting in the bus depot, waiting for Simon to come get me… I felt like falling asleep, and debated doing so, knowing he would wake me up when he got there. I didn't, but struggled to keep my eyes open.

        When we got to his place I took a nap to help me with some energy lost during the train party the night before.

         Then it began…. the endless string of bar hopping.

        We started at a happen' micro-brewery with a live band. I called them the funky shirts. They were a group of slightly older guys (50s - 60s) who all wore really crazy shirts. But man, they were playing a whole lot of classics and they had everyone singing along and dancing. Their musicianship wasn't top notch, but their energy was. 

        Simon and I had dinner there. SpongeBob didn't like the beer, but we kept him quiet, and us from getting kicked out. Some of Simon's friends showed up and eventually we ventured on to greener pastures. Only the cow's were dead, and the pasture was burnt to the ground. 

        We went to the James Joyce (which is nothing like the one in Toronto). It was a pool hall and restaurant/cafe. Simon and one of his friends went to play pool, while the rest of us sat around drinking and chatting. It was a quite, bright atmosphere. I wanted to go back to the dark lively bar. We chilled there until last call. Simon was in party mode,  but the rest of us were starting to crash. He unwillingly lead me to the Cab line.

        Now when I say Cab line, I think (toronto- terms) a line of Cabs waiting to transport people. In Victoria, a cab line is a line of people waiting for a Cab. Most of these people are drunk, belligerent kids who have to get home after the bar. We saw some stupid interesting characters, but I was ready to get to a bed (or in my case, a couch) and in no mood for Shenanigans. 

         These were so pretty rad ducks, they were just chilling on the sidewalk like it was usually... that is until Simon scared them away.

April, 16th, 2010

        The following day Simon showed me how to get downtown, and took me to the harbour. There were lots of sidewalk vendors and tonnes of buskers, each with a different approach, and different genre of music. 

It was pretty there, with all the flowers, and the boats resting in the harbour. The people seemed a lot more relaxed, and there were MANY tourists. It seemed a bit like Jasper, only in the sense that everything is geared towards the tourists.

        We ventured to a couple book stores, and ended up grabbing some lunch at a chain restaurant. Has anyone noticed that a lot of chain restaurants decorate their bathrooms, to make them extreme? Not only did this one look like some crazy Texan's living room, but the toilets were crazy!! They had plastic wrapped around the seat which would feed through a machine to give a sterile surface each and every time. To flush it, there was a metal button on the floor, a couple steps away from the toilet, which one would step on. Sorry to bored you with the details of this washroom… but it was new to me!

        Caesars were on special, and we felt it was our only duty to have some with our lunch/dinner. 

        While we sat on the patio there was this car full of dogs that was on the road right out front of the restaurant. The owners left the back window wide open, and if the big dog really wanted to, it could have easily jumped out. I kept calling to him in a friendly voice, trying to coax him out, while Simon kept telling him to stay. 

We tried to figure out his name. We kept calling out different names, "Paul? Jack? Ralph? Joe? George?Fred? Frank? Jerry? Gerald?" the list went on and on. Sammy seemed to suit him, and I decided on that name, although Simon wasn't satisfied with that.

        There was also a cute little dog in the front of the truck. It had some confidence issues though, because it felt the need to bark and growl at everything it saw, I guess it was to make up for her lack in size. She was quite yappy, and although I preferred her size, we both preferred the attitude of Sammy.

After a few too many drinks, and a great meal, we headed on our way. 

        This evening we had a party in the beach. We met a couple of Simon's friend, watched the sun go down, and made a fire. 

        There were these crazy people swimming. It was about maybe 7 degrees or so, and here these people are swimming away in the dark. When they were done, they came to borrow our fire's warmth. I asked them why they had decided to go. They then showed me the electrolytes. 

        Essentially at different times of the year these bacteria get some kind of charge with positive ions. It they encounter friction, they light up for a split second, kind of like a fire fly. We were moving our hands about the water for a about a good ten minutes just watching it light up.

        There was lots of chatting, and drinking, and joking. The worse joke of the evening was putting this dead loon's body into the fire. The poor thing's neck was broken and it's body was completely waterlogged. Made me sad to look at, but took a while to look away.

         The greatest thing we did was roll a giant stump down to the pit, only for the fire to nearly penetrate it. It took six of us at one point to get it to where we headed it. It was a GIANT stump!

        Once it got too late for the Victorian's we put out the fire. Simon and I decided we would walk back to his place from the beach. It was about a two hour walk, but we had booze, we weren't tired, weren't cold, and ready for the challenge.

         It was quite an epic walk! The terrain went through all sorts of changes, as we walked through the suburbs of Victoria. 

We also had a very long talk, more so than in the past, and although no psychological issues were solved, I think we both enjoyed just chatting about stuff that had been on our minds for weeks, months, and years. 

        Travelling for so long, it was sure nice to have a chat with an old friend who had known me for so long, and I didn't have to continually explain each detail of the story to.

        We stopped on UVic to have a cigar, and refill our drinks. At this point we realized we had been drinking for about twelve hours straight. This thought was hilarious to both of us.

So we took some "we should look like this after twelve hours straight".

      We continued on, and reached a Tim Horton's about thirty minutes later.

We both grabbed hot chocolates, spiked them, and continued walking. We got back to Simon's around 4:30, 5ish, and sat on his front steps. We smoked a cigar each and reflected on our epic walk from the beach and we rested our now sore feet.

How simple

While walking home from the subway station, I was reminded just how beautiful the world can be. It was lightly misting, and was perfect temperature for my light pea coat. I looked up at the trees as I walked past the mini Mirvish parkette. I noticed hints of red and gold. Hearing a car splash by, I watched a leaf drop, it hit the ground effortlessly beside an imprint of it's golden father. I drew a deep breath, inhaling my childhood Halloween memories. "I enjoy this about the world", I thought as I turned my face towards the mist. How simple the beauty of the world can be.