Victoria (15-17 September 2006)

Exchange Trip #1

Mon 18 Sep 2006 20 °C

This past weekend we've been in Victoria - the capital of British Columbia and the biggest city on Vancouver Island. I can see how it might be confusing given all these similar names, so I'll try and give you a brief rundown.

British Columbia is Canada's south-western province.
Vancouver is on the mainland, and is the biggest city in BC.
Vancouver Island is off the west coast, and is an island.
Victoria is BC's capital and it's on Vancouver Island.

So there you have it, BC in a nutshell.

So.... we left for Victoria as one massive group (24 of us, most of whom were Aussie!). The trip took about 6 hours by 4 buses and 1 ferry. We were staying at Ocean Island Backpackers which was fairly plain but served its purpose very well. The staff attempted to be helpful, although it became clear fairly quickly that they didn't know Victoria that well!!

We had dinner at My Thai - my first real Thai meal pretty much since I left home - and then headed out for ice cream. Unfortunately the place that we wanted to go to - one on the main street with 66 flavours - was closed! As a small (!) consolation, Natasha, Steph and I went to see Freq Nasty (the breaks DJ with a bird's nest haircut) DJ for $20! Awesome awesome breaks, and a really cool little club, but we were buggered by 1am!

Saturday morning we all slowly got up and headed out for a massive (in every sense of the word) breakfast at a cafe somewhere in Vic (its name escapes me). After such a huge omelette we decided to burn it off by cycling to Thetis Lake. This took slightly longer than expected, but the weather was awesome and the trip itself was great fun - really inspired me to do more outdoorsy activities before the weather turns sour come November-December.

We returned to Victoria to watch some street hockey before grabbing ice cream at Marble Slab (Cold Rock, anyone?). We went to John's Place (about 10 doors down from our hostel) for dinner - a great rare steak - before heading out to Legends. Legends is the tackiest, most mainstream, sleazy bar in Victoria and we owned it on Saturday! All 24 of us descended on it and brought the fun. To top it off it was the Kokanee Glacier Girl search, which turned the place into a bit of a sausage fest for a while before the dancing took over! What would Canada be without Sexyback!!

On Sunday I woke up fairly early to have breakfast with one of my 2nd Cousins Susan! I'd only been made privy to having relatives in Canada about a year ago, so to actually be here having brekkie with one was awesome! Flis and I are the youngest relatives but that didn't make the slightest difference as we got along famously! Oh, and breakfast was tops too - nothing beats fruit for a hangover!

The weather was nothing on yesterday (all rain and clouds ) so Claire, Amanda and I wandered all around downtown, along the coast and through the park (incl the world's largest Totem Pole) before we hopped on the bus/ferry/bus combo home.