What a beautiful, quaint little city. And, I was embarrassed to admit I did not know that it was the capital of British Columbia. I had just assumed it was Vancouver. I was pleasantly surprised, for some reason I was envisaging something Canberra-easque, (no offense canberra, but you're fugly) but lo and behold i ended up absolutely loving it. So here's what went down. Luke had hockey games all weekend in Victoria, so he and Mark went down there on Friday. Then Neen and I got the ferry bright and early on Sat morning, (well, 10am) and we passed the time enjoying the pretty pretty water from the extremely new and cool ferry, and reading nylon magazine and being generally content. We got the express double decker bus when we arrived, to, get ready for it... SIDNEY. Not sure if I'm keen on the 'sydney with an i' business but nevertheless, I was amused. Its such a little town by the sea, very quiet but sweet. We explored a couple of thrift stores and went to a place for shish kebabs. Ofcourse, I screwed up by failing to ask for no tsatsiki, and wasted 6.95 on something so yummy yet so deadly for me. and seeing as I was already feeling a little bit under the weather, I merely picked at the few yoghurt-free morsels and had to leave the rest. oh the shame.

Things got better from there though. We got tea at a place in sidney, and Mark picked us up and we dropped Lea (Nina's grandmother) home. The time had come to check into our accommodation for the evening: Travelodge. Pure deluxe living let me tell you. I have photos of the off-moldy-beige wallpaper and piercing flurescent lights to prove it. But really, it was fine. Nina and I then walked into downtown Victoria and explored the streets with glee. I was being my usual photo-taking self, but this time it was different...everything was so damn pretty that even the crap photos looked good. Little details in wide sidewalks and pretty lampposts and clean everythings and sunlight perfectly mingling with the beautifully decorated shop windows. AAAND THEN we found heaven, in the form of this vintage ish shop called "the Patch", which had been reccommended by Nina's friend Dervla, and somehow we miraculously managed to find it, thanks to our combined genius and the help of a phone book...So the next, i dont know, billion seconds were spent trying on way too many pretty things. But thankfully, this place was not too overpriced in the way many dubbed 'vintage' stores can be. so after much umming and ahhhing and creased foreheads and guilty thoughts of dwindling savings, we made our choices. She got 2 cute high waisted skirts and a pretty blue dress and I got 2 dresses, both vastly different but equally awesome. one pink, the other blue and white. thats the extent of my descriptions, as a) i think i am becoming boring and too fixated on minute details of fashion, and b) i always make clothes sound terrible when in fact they are everything but.

Oh god. I want to cry. Kevin just brought in a pizza to share with everyone at work. I hate dairy for being so beautiful. Anywayway back to the story, (more for the sake of distraction from the cheesy goodness staring at me from the other side of them room, being hungrily devoured by my coworkers as I suffer in my bubble of intolerance...) Shopping had sucked all the energy from Nina and me, so therefore, we needed some "nourishment", as Lukes weird little friend Drew would say (he would not stop using that word the entire day). So we stumbled upon 'John's Place', a cool diner kind of thing which, coincidentally, we had been mocking earlier in the day when we saw it in the tourist guide. It turned out to be tasty and cool, we had soy mocha and earl grey and I had no choice but to take several photos of the beautifully concocted banana split thing that Nina had, complete with little chunks of banana bread and cashews. Oh baby. There was, however, a brief moment of depression for me, after a woman told me how much she thought I looked like Amy Winehouse--apparently in her eyes that was a compliment as she said "isnt she gorgeous? you guys have the same cheekbones" so I made a mental note to curse my parents for giving me the facial features of a crack w****. We had a swim at a lake after picking up Luke and Drew (they had won two out of their three games so were pretty chirpy) and then went on home to "travel hodge" as coined by Mark. Dinner was thai, delishhhhh, and I found a new respect for prawns. They are pretty nice to eat. Sleep was a bit difficult, especially for Nina with her long model legs, as the pull out sofa was so short that even my short little stumps went over the edge. Next morning was spent with some last minute sight seeing--parliament buildings, Empress Hotel, Mile zero, harbour, all extremely beautiful and went well with the london fogs we drank. Ferry home seemed to take a mere minute, thanks to the buffet lunch we were treated to. Very nice, and I made sure i got my moneys worth by taking a billion tea bags with me, as did Nina. Pure genius.

The day was not over though. after a couple of hours doing nada at home, cath, neen and i ventured into the wide and wonderfully weird world of main street, where it was car free day. Just being able to walk, jump, dance, run, skip, ride, spin out of control in the middle of the road, sans cars, seemed to put a giant smile on everyones face. It was around 630 when we got there, and it was still lively and lovely. street performers, djs, many many many bikes which I would have gladly stolen, musicians, jugglers, bike valets, antiques, 5 dollar clothing stalls, vegan kitchen tents and 'help save the shark' activists lit up the street. and it was beautiful, some more good photos were taken. and i bought a sweet little antique french book from 1930 called "les malheurs de sophie"-i mean, i just had to. only five bucks. when we were done roaming and raving, we went into "the main". i want to give this restaurant an award or something, it was so damn good. i have never been to a better greek restaurant in my life. it seems like all i ever talk about is food; i think i could write a book on all the wonderful things I have consumed over the past 7 weeks. I cant even imagine the encyclopedias that will result from encounters with europe and japan's cuisine...As if the night couldnt get any better, we found some tasty, (non dairy ofcourse) gelato on our walk home, and proceeded to watch 2 glorious episodes of six feet under before crashing our tired heads.

In other words: I had a good weekend.

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