That's the other thing, tonight is the last night we'll sleep in Canada until we cross the border into Windsor at the end of the month <single tear>. The first thing we did when we got up was head out for breakfast. The Jam Cafe is supposed to have the best breakfast in town, but they advise getting there before 8:00 if you don't want to wait. It was 8:30 when we arrived on the doorstep, and there was easily a 25 minute wait. Nope, luckily this is a town that knows how to nosh in the AM, so we walked back towards the hotel a few blocks and were at Mole, a great breakfast joint that actually specializes in veg breakfasts. It did the trick. I had the biscuit, eggs and mushroom sausage combo, and T had some sort of Mexican egg thing. Both were great, Gord was partial to Mom's meal, which was just fine with me.
From there we headed to the harbour. We wanted to ask a few questions to the ferry line, Black Ball ferry. We had a reservation for the 10:30 ferry, but could likely get up and out of town a little earlier if there was another passage, but we'd have to see. There is also a ferry directly to Seattle, which we didn't know about when we booked this ferry to Port Angeles, WA. Here's what we found out. The ferry to Seattle was not full, but it's for people only, no cars. That's a problem. So we're heading to Port Angeles, but maybe there's an earlier departure? The only earlier departure is at 6:10, and we'd have to be there for 5:10 to check in. Alright then, we left it as status quo and headed out of the ferry terminal. We'll return tomorrow morning at 9:00 to pas through US customs.
Next we had to stop back at the room because my glasses broke! What is it with these things and long trips. As many people know my glasses also broke on the third day of a three week long trip to Thailand, I managed to get through that trip ok, but I learned from it. Back at the room was a back up pair of glasses! Even better, they weren't needed. A little super glue from the concierge and we were back on the streets of Victoria.
Having grown up not too far from Toronto both Theresa and I have been to the Royal Ontario Museum a number of times with various school trips, but neither of us have ever been to the Royal BC Museum - well we can't say that anymore. As predicted, the museum was great. Gord got a little ways into the feature gallery - Race to the South Pole: a special look at the Norgian and Brittish competition to reach the bottom of the earth in the early 20th century, but had a screaming fit almost right away. We quickly alised that it was nap time and a few quick bounces in the carrier got him sleeping soundly. We walked through the Native People's gallery, the Hstorical gallery, and saw a bit of the China Town gallery before we succumbed to fatigue and retreated once again to the comforts of the room.
This guy was all smiles, unlike Gord.
As promised, we had a quick rest and then headed for the pool. It was nice. Not too big, but basically empty. And Gord loves water, so long as it's not too cold, he loves to swim. We started in the foot deep wading pool, but that wasn't good enough. So into the 'big' pool we went and the smiles kept coming. A few women were already swimming when we got there and they predictably swooned over little G. We finished the swim off with a brief soak in the hot tub, which wasn't too hot so as to exclude le bebe. A quick shower for us all and we headed back up stairs to change for dinner.
We knew that there were a number of great options for dinner, but we wanted something on the water if we could find it. A quick search found us the Red Canoe Brew Pub and Restaurant. It has a beautiful patio right on the water, and more importantly, it was in the sun but out of the wind (Victoria was a little chilly that day, at least in our shorts and sort sleeves, but not when out of the wind). We had yet another great meal - more polenta fries (these with fresh mozza), a great big salad and a lovely veg sandwich. Gord, again, was a hit. We've gotten used to it, but you don't ever get tired of seeing a stranger mouth 'OH MY GOG, LOOK AT THAT BABY' to their friend. I think many of the servers would have taken him home if we had not been vigilant.
And that was about it. We waited in the lobby for a little too long hoping to catch a glimpse of actor/rapper Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def), who was playing Ska fest the night before and is one of my fav artists, but after slinking around for 20 minutes the baby was getting restless and we were getting bored, it was good enough to know we were staying in the same hotel as he. As T was getting the boy down I took the bulk of our stuff down to the car (we have a plan for breakfast tomorrow morning before customs, but it will take some planning and a speedy check out) and on my way back to the room I stopped at The Soda Shoppe for an ice cream and a soda. I got T a cookies and cream in a waffle cone and had a Ting a Ling for myself, that's a lemon lime soda ice cream float to those initiated. Both were delicious.
To bed to bed. We had a busy day of ferries tomorrow, and Grd's first trip South of the 49th parallel, what an I tear atonal traveller.
TOTAL FUEL FILL UPS: 6
DAILY WILDLIFE: gulls, dogs, nothing fancy, we're in a city!
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