It’s not supposed to snow any more today. There are no wind warnings for Greater Victoria today. Hopefully my sister’s flight lands as scheduled, although you never know with Victoria. From the warmth of my room, the roads outside look fine however apparently some parts of bus routes are closed and the rest are possibly delayed. Welcome to a snowy Victoria winter.
Tag Archives: victoria
Plateau
The excitement of the last few days of snow and wind has somewhat plateaued and I’ve settled into the routine of couch potato. It is difficult to motivate oneself to go outside into cold and snow when it is completely frigid outside. I know, “frigid” is relative, but for me, it is pretty darn cold. It doesn’t help matters when everything in Victoria also shuts down as a result of the weather. I left to go to church on Sunday evening and there was no one there. It was disappointing. Both staff Christmas parties I was to go to this week have been cancelled
Don’t get me wrong, however, I did leave the house today. It was a beautiful sunshiny day with the temperature hovering just above zero. If it wasn’t for the deathly icy roads in places, it would have been a fabulous walk. It was a fairly productive walk. I now have my UVic student card for next semester, complete with bus pass and gym membership. I was able to get a new one so I no longer look 14 on my university student card. Bonus.
Then it was home to resume my status as resident couch potato.
Walking in a Winter Wonderland
Walking down Shelbourne at 7:30 this morning
Kids playing in the streets this afternoon
Crazy amounts of blowing snow this morning on the way to church.
Snow… lots of snow.
SNOW
The forecasted 10-15 cm of snow we are supposed to get overnight is well on its way to becoming reality. In true Victoria fashion, drivers are taking 2 lanes and driving 15km/h with 4-way flashers, roads are shut down, tires are spinning and people are spinning out. My bet is that there will be no bus service in the morning. I wonder if we’ll still have the Christmas Pageant at church?
I find this all very amusing and if I had a helmet for my new bicycle I would ride to church tomorrow morning. However, as much as I trust myself, I don’t trust other drivers and I’m not going out with them without full body armour.
The snow is making me feel much more like it is Christmas. I haven’t really seen snow for 2 years (other than a bit of ice in Beijing in February). Victoria looks quite beautiful now. If it lasts, I’ll get some photos in the morning when the sun is up.
Work, Church, and Coffee
I realize I’ve been a bit AWOL as of late. Its been a busy last couple of weeks. Exactly a week after my depressing day of being un-hired (“We’ve reconsidered” was the exact phraseology, I believe), I started work at a local optometrist. It is a relatively new optometrist, although as an optical place, it has been around for a long time; the addition of a doctor is relatively new. We shall see how it goes. I’m also trying to get lots of paper work together to begin working as a casual employee of an organization in town that runs group homes for people with mental/developmental disabilities. It sounds quite interesting and will be potentially good preparation for grad school. Hopefully all of that will come together in the next week or so. While I am not the type to usually have two jobs on the go at once, I feel like it will all work out in the end.
At the moment, the highlight of the week is choir. I’ve joined the parish choir at church (read: the non-audition choir at the more informal family-oriented service) and its fun to get together Wednesday night for practice and then sing on Sunday morning. We sit at the front of the church facing the congregation and while I love looking at the huge rose window with the beautiful organ in front of it every week, I miss facing the altar at times and seeing everything that goes on up front. It has been a wonderful way to get to know other people at church. I feel like I’m in now and know lots of people. The only difficult part is getting there for 8:30 on Sunday morning. The only bus comes a little early and gets me downtown by about ten after so I usually grab a coffee (I know, not the best thing to wake up vocal chords but the only thing to keep me awake. Yawning at the front of church while facing everyone not a fantastic idea.) from the Starbucks on the way. Yes, Starbucks. It is the only time I drink their coffee when I’m in Victoria as it is not my favourite. But, the only other coffee shop on my way in the morning doesn’t open until 9 on Sundays, so Starbucks it is. This morning, I had the horrible experience of finding out that all the Starbucks in the city (or so I was informed) were out of soy milk. How is a lacto to have their latte without soy milk?!? After I recovered from that shock, I went into express mode and walked at top speed down to the other end of Yates St to my usual coffee shop, the Serious Coffee at Broad. Fortunately for me, they had only opened twenty minutes earlier (it was twenty past 8 at this point) and there was no queue. In and out, 12oz soy vanilla latte in hand, I’m booking it back up the street to get to church in time for our before-service practice. Up the several tight twists of small stone steps to get to our choir room half way up the tower, I have my coffee and no breath. But, I’m on time.
Speaking of coffee shops in town, I’ve been conducting an informal survey of prices: I go into a coffee shop, order the same thing (12oz soy vanilla latte) and always bring my own mug and then take note of the price. While it is always a rip off, prices have varied from $4.12 to $4.63. Though not dollars apart, that still is a bit of a difference between them. I’ve got about five different places in my sample thus far. Mundane, I know, but this has been my life for the last few weeks.
UPDATE: I was charged thirty cents less today at a previously sampled place for my coffee sans mug. Interesting given the fact that it is supposed to be cheaper if you bring your own mug.
Photo of the Day
Pandora Avenue, Sunrise.
It has arrived
After a false start last weekend, moving day has arrived. Today my new roommate is showing up with her parent’s truck to help shift everything over there. Fortunately for me, its only about 10 or 15 min driving down the road. It is raining… should I be surprised after the week of rain we’ve had? No, not really, but I was hoping.
. . . over the last couple of weeks . . .
Top down:
Games on Rugged Beach, West coast of Vancouver Island
Kyuquot, BC
Cougar Annie’s garden
Rowing ashore at Cougar Annie’s
Race Rocks
Jen and lots of yummy blackberries
Drew and Raydene’s wedding
The Pacific Swift
BC Day (and the last week)
Happy BC Day! Today British Columbia celebrated 150 years. Of what, I’m not sure. Canada hasn’t even been a country for that long, but the land has been around much longer than that. I think it is 150 years of being a British Colony. Because time begins when Britain makes you a colony.
Enough of that. Here is my week in review:
Purden Lake, where we stayed the night before driving out to Edmonton from Prince George. Colleen’s sister has a cabin here. Very nice! It would have been ever better had we had time to enjoy the things one can do there, like getting out on the lake! Next time.
On the drive… Mt Robson!
To Edmonton we go for Carlynne’s wonderful wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony and the reception was lots of fun. I had a great time catching up with people I haven’t seen in at least a year, most more.
I flew back to Victoria from Edmonton because I knew I wouldn’t have time to drive back down to Vancouver and then get over to Victoria to get in the van to drive up to Port Hardy to get back on the boat. Whew, I’m exhausted just thinking about it! This is flying into Vancouver where I had a 2 hour layover. The fact that I had to wait 2 hours wouldn’t have been too bad except for the fact that there were approximately 5 flights for Victoria that left between the time when I landed and the time my flight was. Why they couldn’t have put me on one of those, I don’t know. I tried to change my ticket, but I had checked luggage. Speaking of which, Air Canada has gotten even stupider and now charges you if you have more than 1 checked bag. One more good reason to fly WestJet.
Finally, Victoria! I had time last night to set up my new room. There were a few things I still needed to pick up this morning (like hangers), and there are still a few modifications to be made, but here is where I sleep and hang out when I’m actually in town. (Janis, if you’re reading this, yes, this is your old room!)
TV room – room you walk into from outside. Roommate’s TV, not mine. Large collection of DVDs on left, his. Smaller amount on right, mine. The three closest to the middle on each side are the same: Lord of the Rings, Extended Edition. At least we have some similar tastes!
Kitchen, as seen from TV room.
In my celebration of coming home last night, I heard from one of my friends in town and she told me there was a sweet concert going on tonight at the Legislature. Upon further research, I discovered there were lots of things going on at the Legislature today. So, after doing all the things that needed doing this morning, I headed down for noon to see what was going on. It seems that BC Day is a pretty big deal. Who knew? There were about 8 MPs, an MLA, a mayor, a Premier, and a Prime Minister all sitting up on the stage. I’m not sure why some of them, like Stockwell Day, were there (he needed a party to flash his grin at??), but it was fun none-the-less. Gordon Campbell spoke first and introduced our mascots for the Olympics. A funny thing happened while he was speaking. A lady got up quite close to the front and started yelling at him for cutting down all of our forests. This old lady sitting near her apparently didn’t appreciate her comments because she got up and tried to slap the yeller. Next thing you know, there’s a full-on slap fight going on between them. It was fairly humorous. There were a number of protestors who showed up during the speeches, but they, for the most part, got booed into silence by the crowd.
Next, our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, spoke. As bad as his french is, I liked it better when he attempted to speak french because none of the protestors seemed to understand him: they only booed when he spoke English (and I’m pretty sure I was in BC, not Quebec!).
Then, the next thing I knew, the Snowbirds are flying overhead. It was kind of freaky because I’ve never seen them fly that low before. I’ve also never seen them fly over a major city before – only over the prairies or large air fields. I was minorly hyperventilating the whole time. It was strange because they would periodically disappear behind buildings and then they’d come back for a fly over. It was quite a fun show though!
After that excitement, I wandered around town, reacquainting myself with Victoria after a 14 month absence. I got lunch, went in a few shops, visited my favorite coffee shop in town, and eventually parked myself with a book in the rose garden at the Empress. From there, I could hear the sounds of bands playing at the Legislature – Alex Cuba, Burton Cummings… but I was comfortable in the shade.
I met up with my friend around dinner, we hit up a classic Victoria institution for dinner before heading back to the Legislature to take in the rest of the festivities. There were a couple more people there than there had been in the morning, but we managed to worm our way into the crowd and find decent spots to watch…
Sarah McLaughlan…
…and Feist.
I left before the show was done because today was a long day and the next month is going to be even longer. I head up to Port Hardy tomorrow to rejoin the boat and sail back around to Victoria. I’ll be home sometime around the end of August, beginning of September. Don’t expect to hear too much from me as there isn’t (shock, horror) Internet in the middle of the ocean. I know, its hard to believe. I don’t anticipate much cell reception either. I’m looking forward to getting back on the boat and spending time with some of my favorite people to sail to exotic places with. While this will be no Tahiti or Papua New Guinea, the west coast of the Island is some of the most beautiful and untouched landscape in all of Canada, if not the world. Maybe BC really is The Best Place on Earth.
PS – the concert will be broadcast on CBC on August 30, so you can relive all my fun then!
Moving in
Yesterday I took the drive over to Victoria for the day. A very Long day. Apparently BC Ferries is now Awesome squared, what ever that is supposed to mean!
In the back of my Dad’s CRV was a lot of things – clothing, furniture, mattress (I caved and finally bought the bed), guitar, and random other things I thought I might need over the next year. Unloading went fairly smoothly, actually it went well. I have a lot of stuff. All of the kitchen stuff found a nice home in cupboards and drawers and dvds have gone into the library in the “living room.” Then it was off, with new roommate Steve, to do some shopping for various things (like tp, garbage cans, futon, etc) while I had the wheels for the day.
After a long day of things like that, and forgetting to eat, it was back to put the bed together. Yay for Ikea’s 6 step process. A long 6 steps, but thats all it was. The futon, however, sounded like it was taking more than 6 steps. Steve did that. I heard the noises.
Next thing I knew, it was time to drive like a maniac back up to the ferry to catch the last one home for the evening. Back in Vancouver now, but all set to move into Victoria!
I’ve sent out an email with my new address and phone number. If I’ve forgotten you, leave me a comment and as long as I have your email, I’ll send it off!
gillian's island 