Sonya's Blog - Day 327 - Exploring Victoria

Sonya’s Blog - Day 327 - May 14 - Exploring Victoria

When we took Kizmet to the dog park this morning we could hear a band playing and all sorts of noise coming from up the road. There were a couple of other people at the dog park and the one guy said it was the parade for Buccaneer Days. We decided to go get the kids and walk up there to check it out. Once we got up there, however, the parade was over. We saw the very last fire engine and that was it. So that was a bust for us.

We walked back to the campground and dropped off Kizmet and then drove into Victoria to walk around the harbour/downtown area. We started on Government Street and walked toward the Empress Hotel. We popped into a few stores and then into Roger’s Chocolates to grab some treats. After that we headed over to the Empress to have a look around. The Empress is under construction, so you cannot go through the main doors. We were able to walk through on the second floor, and have a bit of a peek.

A picture with Emily Carr and the Empress in the background:

After that we headed over to the Legislative Building and walked through the grounds.

Isaac was getting hungry so we went to the James Bay Tea Room, because he was all excited about having High Tea. Well, don’t go there if you are ever in Victoria. It was terrible. The service was fine, but the food was not very good and the scones were dry and overcooked. We are done going out for High Tea, we do a much better job of it for a fraction of the cost.

After our disappointing lunch, we headed over to the harbour to walk around. There were lots of craft booths set up to check out, as well as the harbour itself. We then walked up to Douglas Street to walk along that for a bit, but we had had enough so we decided to head back.

Once we got back, we had about an hour to relax before we needed to head out again. Natasha has a friend, from school, that lives in Victoria now. Jeremy and his family moved here when the two were going into Grade 5, but Natasha and Jeremy have stayed in touch. We were all invited over to their house for supper, which was really nice.

We headed towards Brentwood Bay at 5:30, as we were expected at 6 and it was about a 1/2 hour away. I had met Jeremy’s parents, David and Karen, several times during my volunteering stints at Sam Livingston School. Jeremy also has a younger brother, Joshua, who just turned 9. This worked out perfect. Josh and Isaac were fast friends and were off exploring the back yard and doing boy stuff in not time. Jeremy and Natasha disappeared to catch up and we were left to have an adult conversation without interruptions.

We had a lovely time talking about our trip and hearing about Karen and David’s various adventures since they moved to Victoria. We had a great meal of ribs and salads as well, it was awesome. Jeremy and Natasha decided to eat on the roof, just for fun. It is a really low pitched roof and accessible, so it wasn’t a huge deal. They thought it was a super thing to do. Josh and Isaac grabbed their food and disappeared into the basement, as they were watching a movie. Isaac loved the ribs and kept coming back upstairs to grab more. All of a sudden it was midnight, which I was shocked to hear, so we had to go. Natasha and Jeremy had plans to hang out tomorrow, so we discussed bringing her by when we were all up and ready to go. It won’t be before 10 or 11 with our late night tonight. We all had a great time and it was really nice of the family to have us over.

Sonya