My First Week in Victoria - What a difference 4000km makes!

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!

Moving Day - Nov. 1st 2007

Well, here it is, the day I leave Niagara. Who knew it would arrive so quickly?


November 1st, 2007

Up early( of course )to go get the rental car and finish running around on various errands.

We had packed up our cat Tristan in his carrier and had him in the car with me, which turned out not to be a good idea. The vet had recommended that we use a herbal mixture to keep him calm instead of a sedative, so we'd been dosing him for about a week now in small amounts. Today was the larger dose, given him early so that he'd doze through the trip to B.C.

No such luck though. Somehow, he knew something was up, and started to really panic - so much so that he lost control of his bodily functions... in the carrier, which was in the rental car. Messy. At least we had fasted him the last 12 hours, so it was mostly solids... *sigh*

So, at 11:30am, we had to go BACK to the condo and clean Tristan up, as well as the carrier and the rental car. Thankfully, all three responded well to the cleaning supplies we had left for the new occupants of the place, and my parents were fairly efficient at this sort of thing from years of experience with both pets and small children years ago.

Once Tristan was tidy, we put him on a leash and sat him in my mother's arms so he could look out the window( and remain calmer )while we rushed to the vets: time for a sedative, with no choice in the matter. Once that was done, Tristan calmed down immediately with no harmful effects; he dozed in the carrier placidly for the rest of the trip, eliciting many a comment from people about that 'adorable cat' sleeping in the carrier.

We hit the road running at 12pm, taking the Q.E.W. straight to the Hamilton office of Enterprise Rental cars and transferring our luggage to a local taxi-van called for when we arrived. By renting the car just to take to Hamilton, and taking a taxi from there to the Hamilton International Airport, we saved almost $200.00 as compared to the other alternative, an 'exclusive' limo ride from Niagara Airbus; apparently they don't offer shuttle service to H.I., just Toronto or Buffalo. Jerks... but I still managed to save a TON of money despite them. Which is good, considering that for what this move cost, I could have bought a good used car twice over...

With check-in at H.I. done, we had a little time to relax, so we had lunch in the form of sandwiches from the newly-opened Tim Horton's in the main lobby / waiting area. Tristan was still dozing contentedly in his carrier; we kept checking him the whole trip to ensure he was okay. Oh, and it was also nice to find out that our massively-packed bags were under-weight, so no extra fees for additional pounds of passenger allowance for the flight - a nice bonus.

We boarded the flight on time, in blustery conditions that we were glad to leave behind. Taking off a little after 4pm EST, we soared above the cloud ceiling, revealing a majestic vista I still recall: a vast rolling plateau of white clouds, stretching from horizon to horizon, looking for all the world as though we were flying above a gigantic glacier of white ice. It was stunning, with the bright sun striking shadows among the clefts of the clouds; not a break to see anywhere in the expanse.

We all watched the new movie 'Ratatouille' and enjoyed it immensely, as it was far less sappy-feel-good than I had expected. The animation was excellent, as was the comic timing.

Coming in to land at the Calgary Airport, the view was again incredible. The vast sprawl of the city suburbs were dotted with thousands of tiny dark pine trees, giving the whole vista an odd look resembling someone who hadn't shaved in a few days, all stubbly in the evening light. But the real winner was the view of the mountains to the west: they floated in the distance, a line of ethereal monsters in the twilight, their feet in shadow and their tops lit like white ghosts by the setting sun behind them. Truly amazing, and impossible to get a picture of from an airplane.

After a brief layover in Calgary, barely enough time to grab a Subway 6" sub, we were off again. Fortunately, this was only a little over an hour's flight time, which was good... as we were blessed with a screaming child three rows up, the whole way. Did I mention he kept repeating the same phrase, in another language, over and over? Lovely... an hour's worth of that, and still the tyke didn't manage to tire himself out. At least this wasn't an international haul...

Did I mention that our pilot's name was Walker? MadMax3 fans, you'll get the reference... :)

Landing in Victoria was a relief, to get away from that noise. Too bad the view from the windows was simply of lights in the darkness; I would have liked to see my new home from the air, but perhaps another time I will get the chance. We picked up the rental car and were off from the airport in a flash, though some interesting signage caused us to loop back once before we got the hang of directions.

We traveled south along the main route, the PatBay Highway, which is a lovely 4-lane divided highway that heads straight into Victoria itself. It dips and curves through the landscape, which from what I could see in the dark was still quite rocky and heavily forested. There was not a lot of heavy development, just the usual highway offshoots, though again one difference was that the highway had quite a few stoplights on it, with warning flashers about 100 meters ahead to warn traffic to slow down. The speed limit was 90kph, posted, and surprisingly most traffic kept to that, or under - shocking to my Ontario driving senses. Well-behaved drivers on highways would be something the rest of the country could learn to imitate, in my opinion.

We arrived here just after 7pm PDT. The building was easy to find, though the entrance to the parking garage was a little cramped, as was the parking space( such are the way of things ). It is located near Beacon Hill Park, quite a sizable place in the heart of downtown Victoria. Getting into the condo itself was easy, as it is on the next floor up and there is an elevator too. Looking at the place, it will be nice enough to stay in for the next few months: it has a large kitchen, laundry, two bathrooms( both with shower tubs )and two large bedrooms.

Of course, we had to unpack after such an exhausting trip... family tradition. We all went to bed well after midnight, including Tristan, who lounged out of his carrier and settled in without a fuss in the new place, which we were glad to see. The less fuss, the better; he was still drowsy but was quite happy, as he kept asking for attention as we unpacked, again a good sign of no-stress.

I was very tired, but happy to have finally arrived. Hopefully the rest of our gear would be here within a week, so we could gather some of the essentials from it and begin our search for separate accommodations in Victoria; both my parents and I would each need a 2-bedroom place with laundry, hopefully within walking / fast bus-ride distance of the downtown area.

Now, to sleep in my new hometown, and to dream of the future.