Monday, July 06, 2009

An exhuberance of photos! A dismal formatting fail!

Due to some sort of karmic face-slapping, both my birthday and our anniversary fall smack in the middle of PAPERSFINALSTHESKYISFALLING!!! So we celebrate these things in the summer when all the madness is over.

And even though we are po-po, we usually try to get at least an hour away from where we are currently living for el aniversary. This year we left it til the very last minute so that all non-organ-harvesty B&Bs were booked up and we ended up snagging a hotel room in nearby Sooke. Except that while the address of the hotel was in Sooke, the hotel itself was in downtown Victoria.

So we hopped in the car Friday evening and drove a whopping 20 minutes. Getting away from it all! It was probably for the best, though, because we haven't really had a chance to explore Victoria since we moved here SIX MONTHS AGO!

We pretty well spent two and a half days tramping around the city, somewhat hampered by Victoria's abundance of statues and our complete inability to walk by a statue without trying to look like it.
This is tricky when the statue is A.) very high up and B.) holding something that you are not holding (i.e. a sceptre or a gun).It becomes extra-extra difficult when the guy is just STANDING there.Slightly more successful...The old 'stare into middle distance'This inability to walk by a thing and not try to imitate it goes double for animal exhibits where we aren't supposed to be taking photos at alland triple for old-timey posters of Hitler...where we aren't supposed to be taking photos.

Because we have plenty of visitors coming over this summer we had to do a fair bit of 'field research' (read: eating tasty treats in new and exciting places).
It has been a dream of mine to eat one of these ocean-side waffles ever since Robyn came over in April and we walked by the waffle guy. So, maybe less of a Life Dream and maybe more of a Goal for This Year.

Do not think, because of the eating, that we are filthy swimming rich or have forgotten our frugal Mennonite heritage. We totally brought a whack of food from home but we are robust eaters, Joel and I, and there is something about stomping all over the city that says 'Eat a chimichanga the size of your head!'


Lessee, what am I forgetting. Oh yes, the street performers. Seriously, the third of Victoria's population that is neither a college student nor an retiree is a street performer.

Painfully unfunny and aggressively-money-grabby street acrobats that I hated so much I didn't even photograph? Check.

Man-stealing brass statuette from the other day? Check.

Air-brushers, caricaturists, and other on-the-spot artists? Check.

Fire-juggling unicyclist? Check.
Opera singers? Er...check. Buskers dressed inexplicably like lobsters? Checccccccccck!




Darth Vader playing the violin? Victoria, you so crazy. But yes, check.




So...it wasn't like last year when we went to Mexico for two months, or even like two years ago where we actually got out of the city, but it was cozy and relaxing and exhausting all at once.
Happy two years, two months, one week and six days, baby.

4 comments:

Lisa said...

Looks like mucho fun! One suggestion--you two should travel with a small supply of props to assist in recreating statues. A gun might be a problem but a scepter shouldn't cause too much commotion with the police.

Anonymous said...

Look at the counter! 2 years, 2 months, 2 weeks and 2 days! That won't happen ever again! But then, neither will the 2,2,2,3 or the 2,2,2,4. Never mind.

I hope you gave the Darth Vader violin player all your money as well as my home phone number because that's the wildest thing I've ever seen and it's 2:34 am and I'm mildly attracted to it. Manly but sensitive all at the same time.

Oh man. I better go to bed.
September

StephL said...

Well geez, we walked all around San Francisco for a week and didn't see any street performers at all! Unless you count schizophrenics angrily shouting at the ground or people boldly selling drugs in the street, in which case we saw LOTS of "street performers," but didn't manage to snap any good pics of them because um, it felt rude.

leahandmichael said...

i need to eat one of those chimichangas