Our Great Canadian Adventure: Victoria

Despite the fact that it's not really that far away, I'd never been to Victoria, BC before this trip.  David and I wanted to go 4 years ago when we were in Vancouver, but there were so many things we wanted to do on the mainland that we didn't want to rush our trip by going out to the island.  I didn't even realize we would be driving through Victoria on this trip until, like, days before we left.  When everyone else was chatting about the ferry and the drive I would just nod my head like I knew what they were talking about, when in reality I hadn't yet consulted a map and didn't actually know where we were headed.  There were so many people going on this trip surely we could just find someone we knew on the freeway and follow them. 

Sometimes that works. 

So, when I realized our ferry dumped us into Victoria I was excited but skeptical...you know how the airports in major cities are usually on the outskirts of the town and so when you land you don't really get to see the city you're in?  I thought the ferry landing would be like that.

So wrong!

On our way there we were just ready to get to the house (about a 3 hour drive beyond Victoria), so we only saw enough to whet my appetite for what a delightful place Victoria must be.

On our way home we reached Victoria a couple of hours before our ferry left, so I figured we would have time to walk around a little bit.  Sadly the US customs people are so mean and do not let you wander once check in time comes.  Canadian customs lets you wander while you're waiting in Port Angeles.  Canadians are nice. 

We ended up with half an hour to either eat or see some Victorian beauty.  We all know that I can't eat so I wanted to be touristy.  Poor David.

This building is so cool.  I don't know what it is, but it's so pretty.

There were a lot of things set up for the Queen's Jubilee.  It was fun to be happy for the Queen for a little bit.

Then David found this interesting statue that he thought Christian needed to pose near:

And I found this Prince Edward Island thing that I wanted to pose by, so that I could pretend I was on P.E.I. with Anne of Green Gables (one of my best friends):






















And then there was this hilarious horse that as soon as David went to introduce Christian to him, he struck this funny pose and wouldn't move.  Note his bent legs.  As we moved on to other things I kept checking back on our horse friend and I never saw him move from his pose.  I don't know much about horses (or anything about horses)  but I thought this was very, very interesting.

Our half hour went very quickly, but I feel we saw quite a lot.  A big building, a statue, a sign, and a funny horse.

And, best of all, David got my passport stamped for me.  (He didn't actually stamp it, he got the official guy to stamp it.)  My old passport had tons of cool stamps in it, but this newest one is kind of lame and I think only has 3 or 4.  I'm so happy to have gotten another stamp. 

Thanks, Victoria, for being so fabulous.

this is a Victorian garbage can.