My time in Victoria these past 5 weeks has been very busy, but I have tried to be as observant as possible - I want to note all the things, big and small, that I find different about life here in Victoria B.C. . Granted, it's a sizable city, so I'm not exactly living in a small village by the sea.
***I will be updating my previous posts with Web links and pictures in the next week or so, so feel free to check back over them by the end of December to 'see' what you've missed! Again, don't forget you can Comment on on this blog down at the bottom, and the same for any other blog entry. Or, just email me. :)
Nov. 3rd - 10th, 2007 - A Week of First Impressions
I was up & out the door before 10am on Nov. 3rd, a Saturday - tired or no, we had lots to do and see, and only so much time left before we took the rental car back... but we ended up renting it for the entire week. Our first stop was at Sears, where I picked up a nice belt - on sale, no less! Needed a new one too, the others are a little tatty.
From there, we went to the Mayfair Mall, one of four area malls( the link also has a lot of info about Victoria's history too ). This one is rather unique; it has a hundred-year-old transplanted "Jeweller's" clock tower on the main corner of Douglas & Hillside, clad in shining golden metal that blazes in the sun like a beacon to shopoholics from across the city. We actually parked on the ROOF of the mall; due to the topography of the area, two of the sides of the mall are actually of a height with the surrounding roads, so the designers built the place with hundreds of additional spots ATOP the mall - you just drive on, and take one of the many stairs or the elevators down. As an aside, you can look DOWN through some of the mall's skylights from the parking lot - rather surreal, in some ways. What I liked the most about the mall( aside from it being modern & clean )is that it had BOTH an Arby's and a ToysRUs - I mean, really, does it get better than that? The food court is spacious and has a wide selection of vendors, and is done with lots of natural fieldstone designed to look like stylish stone fences.
After lunch at the Mayfair, we went to the local WalMart( there's always one around ), where we stocked up on all the 'essentials'. From there, it was a quick hop to a nearby TD Bank, where the bank manager himself took the time to open up a new account for my parents for their pensions. We stopped across the parking lot at the large Save-On-Foods grocery store, where we picked up more essentials and had to stop my dad from overbuying( as always )on foods. Just next door was the Saanich branch of the Victoria Greater Public Library, where we signed up and took out some reading materials. It wasn't a huge branch( that's downtown )but it was well-appointed, and about half the size of the St. Catharines Central Library - not bad for just a 'satellite' branch. Again, both the staff and patrons were very friendly.
It should be noted that so far, everyone without exception has been friendly and relaxed. A great many people my parents have talked to have enthused over how wonderful Victoria is, and welcomed us effusively to the area with genuine warmth. I must say, it is extremely gratifying to have total strangers smiling and chatting with you within five minutes of meeting you - when this happens again and again, anywhere in the city, you begin to glow and grin as well.
We ended the day on the 3rd rather tired, putting away our shopping swag and relaxing in the evening.
November 4th dawned as a beautiful Sunday morning. We decided to take a drive up the Malahat highway, a winding mountain two-lane road that curves west from Victoria into the gorgeous scenery. The view to the south from Victoria was amazing as well; the peak of Mt. Baker was quite clear, its snow capped top gleaming in the bright sunlight. Too bad I don't have a telephoto camera, or I would surely have snapped some awesome pics. Maybe next year...
The Malahat drive was stunning; huge trees a hundred feet high at the smallest dominate the slopes of the mountains in this region's wilder sections and in the parks that cover the lands. The drive was a spectacular vista of stunning views and shadowed corridors of trees, recalling many a nature documentary and summoning thoughts of primeval forests that humans stepped lightly through. The brilliant sunshine was a muted green glow filtering through the vast wooden spikes of the trees, whose lower sides were often covered with masses of soft green moss.
Another neat thing going on was the annual Salmon Run. The highway parks were simply bursting with parked cars and crowds of people under the massive trees, all of whom were there to see the local salmon spawning run. Tons of kids running around in the water, which can't have been all that warm. Given that the road curves like a snake on speed, I found it somewhat frightening that so MANY people and cars were packed along the shoulders, with so little room to maneuver for passing vehicles. Still, I put it on my 'to do' list for next year; looks like fun.
We had lunch at the Malahat Mountain Inn, which is perched on the side of a mountain at the side of the highway and affords spectacular views of the Findlayson Arm of the ocean inlets. The lunch was excellent: I had a spicy broccoli soup that was unlike anything I'd had before, light and tasty yet very filling. Not too expensive for lunch either, considering the view. Too bad the only camera I had was my parent's new cell phone - I took some shots, but they'll be rather pitiful.
On the way home, we drove by Beacon Hill Park, where another crowd of people were enjoying the fine weather by planting trees. Seems this is another annual thing that goes on around here; a ton of families were out, as were many environmentalists clutching spades. Add the many joggers, cyclists, walkers and other folk, and this place is quite the outdoor mecca.
The evening of the 4th was another quiet one; I added a quilt AND a blanket to my window with some creative use of nails and clothespins. Tristan seems to be quite happy here now too.
The 5th was a nice Monday, for my first day of work. I walked down the road to arrive for my am shift, which only took a few minutes through the heart of downtown Victoria. The day at the store was quite pleasant, as all the staff there are very friendly. They seemed to let me fit right in, and actually appreciated some of my modest attempts at humour - no serious Sams or prudes there, I am glad to say. Method-wise, the procedures and such are going to take some getting used to in terms of day-to-day operations, as there are many things that differ from what I am used to doing back in Niagara. Still, the basics are the same, and if my co-workers are any indication then there will be little internal staff-stress to deal with - which is good, as the customer stress is more than enough to worry about daily.
The 6th was an uneventful day at my new store, and later on I started to look for apartments here too using the local paper and search websites. While there is a large selection, I found right away that 2-bedroom units are not only scarce, they are expensive. But I will keep looking.
November 7th brought an unexpected surprise after an early 7am work shift: my sister called to say she was ON the island, as she had caught a ride down this way with a friend who runs hos own trucking business. So we piled into the rental and drove back north up-island to the ferry port of Sidney, where we managed to meet her at the local Saveway foods - all this without being able to get her on her cell phone. Unfortunately, we only had about fifteen minutes to see each other before they had to leave again to catch the ferry back to the mainland, but we did a lot of catching up, hugging and generally being a whole family again. It was great.
Nov. 8th was a typical Victoria winter day: grey and drizzly. Unlike Vancouver, our area does not receive heavy rains for weeks at a time; more like morning and afternoon showers that fall gently, unlike the usual driving rains I've grown up with. I worked this afternoon, while my parents spent the day driving to Langford to check out the various 'big box' stores up in that area, as well as scouting some furniture stores along the way.
Friday the 9th opened with us having breakfast at a lovely place called Brannigan's, which though excellent did not have the cozy atmosphere of the Sunrise back in St. Catharines... and of course, only my family was there, and not the usual crowd of friends. Still, it was good. Since it was a day off work for me, we then went on to London Drugs, which is a large chain of stores out here in the West that carries a large variety of goods, like a mini-WalMart in many ways. But less evil... anyway, I purchased an amazing little camera from Fuji, an F50 with a 12-megapixel resolution and a ton of great features all packed into a pocket-sized metal body. Now I could really start taking some decent photos of my new home. After that, we stopped by a place called Dodd's Furniture across from the Mayfair Mall, where we saw some great pieces including some new mattresses that I think both my parents and I will end up purchasing. Not cheap though, but at least I managed to secure some backup funding only a week before our move, enough to meet our many needs until my parents are settled into their pensions come the new year. Kudos to me, and my good luck! We ended the day by stopping in at the license bureau and getting new ones for all three of us, which was remarkably stress-free.
November 10th was another day off, and the weekend to boot. So of course, we went shopping... again. Good thing I love my parents, as I am no fan of shopping for anything save tech. We ended up putting down payments on a pair of mattresses at Dodd's Furniture, as well as a bed set for my parents that my mother simply fell in love with at first sight - my wallet gave a lurch at the same instant. To make up for it, they treated me to lunch at a nice restaurant out on the east end of the island in Oak Bay, called the Blethering Place Tea Room. It is an authentic British Tea Room and pub, with great service and even better food. The decor left something to be desired though; I'm sure any HGTV design team would get hives at the sight of the interior. Still, I had a fantastic turkey club, and being able to sit next to the windows allowed us to enjoy the sight of downtown Oak Bay in the sunshine - it's a very pretty town, similar to NOTL.
I also purchased a GPS( on sale, of course )for my father to use once he begins his tour guide job(s) in the new year. Though he was reluctant to leave the car to see it, he only needed 30 seconds of my demonstrating the easy-to-use Garmin Nuvi250 unit before asking "How much is it again?" with a smile. I was happy too; having a GPS will allow us to navigate the city much more easily in terms of FINDING places, instead of just wandering and making notes on a paper map. The day ended with my channel-surfing the cable TV here, trying to find my fave shows...
So that's a summary of my first ten days in Victoria. As you can see, I was quite quite busy and had already started work - so much for my week's vacation at the end of October / early November( as usual I spent it in service of the family - maybe next year will be different ). All this, and our huge shipment of worldly goods STILL hadn't arrived from MultiCites - I was starting to worry, and resolved to call them up on Monday the 12th to get an update.
Seeing as THIS blog entry has run on rather long, I will put some of my 'observations' into my NEXT entry, I promise - by this point, I can imagine some folk's eyeball's have started to melt, and a very big THANKS to those of you who have read this far. As a treat, here's a link to one of the things I love the most about Victoria... more about that later. Love this place! Cheers!
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