The Ghosts of Victoria Kept Us From Blogging

So a few of you have inquired via facebook what had happened to the blog . . . well, long story short: We caught the ferry from Victoria to Vancouver on Sunday at noon, and in my haste to pack up my things, I somehow missed the power adapter to my laptop, as well the whole middle-drawer of the dresser which contained all of my shirts. Needless to say, when we arrived in Vancouver (well, Ladner, actually) and I discovered what I'd left behind, I was super-irritated with myself. A quick phone call to our hotel confirmed what I'd left behind but they promised to express them over. On Monday morning, we saw a Canadian mail man literally running back and forth from his truck to the houses on his route, so we that a good omen for a quickly delivered package. Indeed, the delivery was attempted on Tuesday morning, but unfortunately we were on our way to Whistler (more on that later). So we picked up the package yesterday and now we're back online. Yay.

So . . . Saturday. On tap for Saturday was a visit to the Royal BC Museum and drinks at the Empress. The highlight of the museum for me was the Modern History exhibit in which a full-size replica of a turn-of-the-20th-century town has been built including a movie theater playing old movies:

There was also an old bike propped up outside one of the shops:

Other parts of the museum we enjoyed:

After the museum, we walked over the the Empress to have cocktails on the veranda.

Left to Right: Empress 1908 and The Original Bengal Tire

Both drinks we very light and refreshing. I especially enjoyed the froth from the egg white in the Empress 1908. We had a great view of the harbor from the veranda:

The room where the Empress hosts its high tea was right behind us, so I went inside to use the restroom and snapped some pictures while I was inside:

There was a huge yacht in the harbor so once we had finished our drinks we walked down to take a closer look:

The yacht was named Tamsen, and a little bit of googling reveals a few details: 171' long, complete automation via touchscreens, 12,000 square feet of sail area. It was really, really, impressive in person.

Not far from the boat there was a guy dressed in a Darth Vader costume playing the violin. Novel idea, except he really wasn't very good . . . and even saying that might be generous. My view is that if you're going to be a street performer, you should be bringing something unique to the table . . . and anybody could go buy a Darth Vader costume and draw a bow across the strings of a fiddle.

On the way back to the hotel, we walked past this guy:

We'd walked past this gal the day before:

We finished our walk back to the hotel, and while Carolyn rested, I drove over to a local cigar shop where the owner picked out some lovely cigars for us. We sat on our balcony, smoked the cigars and had a drink:

Finally, having spent a few days walking around Victoria, we were surprised at the number of on-street hot dog vendors. They were everywhere. So we thought we would make hotdogs for dinner:

On tap for Sunday: church at Christ Church Cathedral, and then a ferry ride over to Vancouver for the second half of our trip.