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Aug. 18th, 2007 02:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariWedensday, August 8th
We got up bright and early to hit the first ferry our of Tsawwassen. We made it out the door pretty quickly and headed towards the sea.
Money had been very tight by now. There wasn't much we could do because of the Rental Car Fiasco that ate up $400 more than I'd budgeted right off the bat. We were doing okay, though. I had about $75 left in my bank account, and about $30 in cash.
We'd hoped we wouldn't need to buy gas in Canada. It's a bit more expensive than here, and we knew if we were careful, we could probably make it work. But because we weren't doing anything that cost any money we WERE doing a lot of Sunday Driving. I was out of gas.
After some quick calculations, I knew I could fill up the gas tank, and still have $25 in my bank account, and $30 in my wallet. On top of that, I had the emergency $200 Credit Card. God bless you subprime lenders. However - I didn't have enough cash on hand to fill the car up. I used my debit card. HUGE mistake.
I put in roughly $45 (Canadian) in gas in the car. As soon as it went through, I checked my bank balance to see what the exchange rate was since my account shows pre-posted charges on it. To my horror, my account was now $25 overdrawn. Most gas companies take out $1 pre-post to authorize your gas purchase. Maybe it was because I was using a non-Canadian bank, but instead of preposting $1, or preposting the $45, they pre-posted $100. It would clear, correctly, sure. But until it it was a crap shoot that any purchases I made would be declined (large purchases would be declined, little ones would go through). We were up shit creek until Esso decided to give me my money back.
At this point we had to decide what we would do. We had been using up all my cash at this point - Emily doesn't make nearly as much as I do, and I wanted her to keep as much as she could. However, we decided we'd need to dip into her funds. The Emergency $200 became "Getting Home" money, paying for ferries, tolls, fees, and parking.
Slightly upset, but determined to move on, we got on the Tsawwassen Ferry towards Startz Bay. IT was here, again, that I got a taste of how close the US was to Canada. Looking out the window, there was a bouy just a few yards away. Emily pointed out to me that that was the US border. Point Roberts, which was a small little exclave of Washington was sitting right behind it. The guy in front of me overheard us and mentioned the ferry cuts into US Territory only for a quarter mile or so, but the US government had put a LOT of pressure on BC Ferries to use the No Fly List to deny passengers access on that basis. "That must have been a really popular decision," I said sarcastically. Granted, they have the right to ask that since the ferry DOES clip the US border...but really. If worse came to worse, I'm sure they could turn the ferry dock 90 degrees so the ferries WON'T clip the US border, and Liberty Will Be Protected. Thankfully, the US backed off.
The ferry ride began with a Ferry tradition, Ferry Food. And a meal it was. I'd ordered a waffle breakfast. All the was advertised were waffles, eggs and bacon. I didn't expect to get a really good portion of everything. The ferry meal had more food on the plate than you get at IHOPs. And it was GOOD, too. I even had some Five Alive - which I'd remembered from Commercials in the 80s, and then never saw again stateside.
That little cup of maple syrup? Only thing on the whole trip remotely...well...maple syrupy.
After breakfast, we took a stroll out on the deck, and watched as the ferries made their way in and around the Juan de Fuca straits...clear blue oceans, little islands popping up here and there. No dolphins or whales, but we got an errant sea otter or two lounging on the beaches. The one hour trip was just lovely, other than the Titanic Exhibit ads all around the ship (bad idea, folks). It really was an experience, though. I've flown everywhere I needed to go. the only other trip I took was a little 1 hour ride across the Mississippi in New Orleans.
Arriving at Startz bay, Emily took me down an old rail line turned into a road for a nice lesuirely introduction to Vancouver Island. We ended up going down a flower farm, where about ten people had gathered to pain and sketch the flowers. I hadn't seen something like that in a long time...the flower fields were just a beautiful explosion of colors. Slowly but surely, we made our way through rural Saanich to Victoria, proper - eventually going through town towards Beacon Hill Park and Mile 0 on the Transcanada Highway with brief glimpses of the Inner Harbour and the Parliament Buildings. Like the Pan American Highway, this incredibly long stretch of road begins as a smallish park road by the ocean.
We took a look up and down Dallas road, skirting the edge of the ocean, and stopped and admired the view from Clover Point (not only can you see the US and Port Angeles from here - but my cell phone was picking up the American T-Mobile towers...take THAT Roger's Wireless and your insane roaming fees!)
In order to make that first ferry, I simply got up and got out, not taking care of any of the early morning amenities. I was feeling scuzzy - so we decidedto get in contact with our Victoria hostess,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
salamanders. We made our way back to Victoria, HQ, and rested our weary bones and cleaned up for the second half of the day.
Cait, Emily and I went downtown for some shopping and sightseeing, hitting several comic stores, head shops, noveltiy stores and book stores. I actually had to explain that the covers for the American Harry Potter books were MUCH better than the International ones after either Cait or Emily had said they didn't like the way the new covers looked. Or maybe it was me. I can't remember. I'm not enough of a Harry Potter fan to remember. We also saw the World Headquarters for the Smoking Lily - an itty bitty store about five feet wide and fifteen feet long. Maximum occupancy TWO. Not for the claustrophobic
From there, we went to Victoria's Chinatown and Tan Fan Alley.
This was everything Vancouver's Chinatown was not. Vancouver's chinatown seemed to be a in a rather warehousy part of town, and while I wasn't expecting A Little Piece of Home, I was kind of expecting more than the Southeast Side of San Antonio. Victoria's is much much much more lively, with what a rather intimate stage nearby, stores with histories as Chinese Speakeasies, and tons and tons of Chinese food galore. One thing I won't be missing should I ever move to the Pacific Northwest - the Chinese food.
After running around downtown, and looking in on a KFC to see if Poutine was on the menu (I've heard it was, but I couldn't find it) we headed over for a visit to the Beacon Hill Park Petting Zoo (Welcome to Canada - I'm a jumping billy goat!).
The Beacon Hill Petting Zoo was a bit of a mind warper for me, not because of the zoo, but because I really got to see how different the attitudes of Canadians and Americans really are, and how our different experiences make for different attitudes.
1) While in the park, a muslim family was walking around, with the mother of the group in full hijab and niqab. I'd seen Hijab, before, in the US, and usually the folks wearing it are very harried, hurried and have the same look I get when I'm made fun of/laughed at and mocked in hiushed tones. Here, not only was someone in Hijab and niqab, but they were enjoying a leisurely day in the park. I noticed this for one reason - I'd never seen that before. Anywhere. Full islamic hijab AND enjoying their day. 9/11 has made pariahs of muslims in the US...sad really. And I'm prolly a bad person for even noticing her. I'm very quickly becoming a fan of the Live and Let Live attitude Canadians have.
2) Leaving the park we passed a group of religious protesters who were talking about protesting amongst themselves. We couldn't tell WHAT they were protesting, only that the signs had bible quotes. They were generally soft spoken and just tlaking among themselves. When we walked passed them, Emily was given a pamphlet that she refused. He simply said "that's alright" and went back to his talking. As someone who had a friend who was a protester, I can honestly say even Canadian intolerance in more polite. :)
The final leg of the journey was to Glendale Gardens. Cait's aunt and uncle are the caretakers of it, so we got in for free, and even got to visit the caretakers house. And WHAT A HOUSE.
IT was a rustic cabin tucked away in the shrubs, flowers and trees, almost completely hidden from the main gardens. It was BEAUTIFUL. And its their house till they stop being the caretakers. Supposedly there's a LONG list of folks waiting for the house after them - they're going to be waiting a long time.
The garden pics speak for themselves, and look better than I could ever describe them using words. i r a riter but not gooder for that. You can see the pics here ( http://www.dolari.dragondata.net/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=2063&g2_page=4 ) and on the next FIVE pages.
FRom there, we hit a local grocery store for Canadian Specific snacks and taking pics. The winner of the MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY DON'T MAKE THIS HERE PLEASE START award goes to Tandoori Sizzler Doritos:
We also picked up some take home candies, and I nearly walked away with a box of Shreddies, before I realized I had twenty boxes of cereal already at home. Many candies and snacks and Orange Crush (you can get it in the US, but not around here!) we were set snack wise...but not quite yet.
You see...there was one place we hadn't hit yet. And while I had my Canadian Content for the day...I hadn't hit one place JUST yet.
One box of random Timbits and two Ice Caps later, we all returned back to Cait's for even MORE CanCon, a movie called Love and Human Remains. Which is a creepy little disjointed movie about gay love and dominatrixes and drugs and serial killers. Good movie, even if I couldn't grasp how most of that was interconnected. Afterwards we saw a Sitcom about Seskatchewan called Corner Gas. This is coming to the US on WGN in September. I expect you all to sit down and watch it. ALL of you. I'm looking at you, North Dakota. It's like Twin Peaks if Seinfeld had written it.
"
I walked away from Canada with about four seasons of this, and it's totally worth it.
I'd been running out of pictures on my camera (I'd taken almost 1300 pictures at this time) so I decided to consolidate them all on my phone. They were all transferred from the camera to the phone, only to have the USB SD card reader adapter flake out on me, turning my pictures into unreadbale directories. Before I managed to stop the destruction, I'd lost almost a day and a half of pictures. Which is sad, because there were a LOT of AWFW cloud pictures I wanted, inclusing pictures of Mount Rainier poking out of a cloudbank. And everyone got to hear me curse like a sailor under my breath - just like I do at work!
IT was a fitful night, but eventually, I went to sleep - my last day in Victoria awaited.
We got up bright and early to hit the first ferry our of Tsawwassen. We made it out the door pretty quickly and headed towards the sea.
Money had been very tight by now. There wasn't much we could do because of the Rental Car Fiasco that ate up $400 more than I'd budgeted right off the bat. We were doing okay, though. I had about $75 left in my bank account, and about $30 in cash.
We'd hoped we wouldn't need to buy gas in Canada. It's a bit more expensive than here, and we knew if we were careful, we could probably make it work. But because we weren't doing anything that cost any money we WERE doing a lot of Sunday Driving. I was out of gas.
After some quick calculations, I knew I could fill up the gas tank, and still have $25 in my bank account, and $30 in my wallet. On top of that, I had the emergency $200 Credit Card. God bless you subprime lenders. However - I didn't have enough cash on hand to fill the car up. I used my debit card. HUGE mistake.
I put in roughly $45 (Canadian) in gas in the car. As soon as it went through, I checked my bank balance to see what the exchange rate was since my account shows pre-posted charges on it. To my horror, my account was now $25 overdrawn. Most gas companies take out $1 pre-post to authorize your gas purchase. Maybe it was because I was using a non-Canadian bank, but instead of preposting $1, or preposting the $45, they pre-posted $100. It would clear, correctly, sure. But until it it was a crap shoot that any purchases I made would be declined (large purchases would be declined, little ones would go through). We were up shit creek until Esso decided to give me my money back.
At this point we had to decide what we would do. We had been using up all my cash at this point - Emily doesn't make nearly as much as I do, and I wanted her to keep as much as she could. However, we decided we'd need to dip into her funds. The Emergency $200 became "Getting Home" money, paying for ferries, tolls, fees, and parking.
Slightly upset, but determined to move on, we got on the Tsawwassen Ferry towards Startz Bay. IT was here, again, that I got a taste of how close the US was to Canada. Looking out the window, there was a bouy just a few yards away. Emily pointed out to me that that was the US border. Point Roberts, which was a small little exclave of Washington was sitting right behind it. The guy in front of me overheard us and mentioned the ferry cuts into US Territory only for a quarter mile or so, but the US government had put a LOT of pressure on BC Ferries to use the No Fly List to deny passengers access on that basis. "That must have been a really popular decision," I said sarcastically. Granted, they have the right to ask that since the ferry DOES clip the US border...but really. If worse came to worse, I'm sure they could turn the ferry dock 90 degrees so the ferries WON'T clip the US border, and Liberty Will Be Protected. Thankfully, the US backed off.
The ferry ride began with a Ferry tradition, Ferry Food. And a meal it was. I'd ordered a waffle breakfast. All the was advertised were waffles, eggs and bacon. I didn't expect to get a really good portion of everything. The ferry meal had more food on the plate than you get at IHOPs. And it was GOOD, too. I even had some Five Alive - which I'd remembered from Commercials in the 80s, and then never saw again stateside.
That little cup of maple syrup? Only thing on the whole trip remotely...well...maple syrupy.
After breakfast, we took a stroll out on the deck, and watched as the ferries made their way in and around the Juan de Fuca straits...clear blue oceans, little islands popping up here and there. No dolphins or whales, but we got an errant sea otter or two lounging on the beaches. The one hour trip was just lovely, other than the Titanic Exhibit ads all around the ship (bad idea, folks). It really was an experience, though. I've flown everywhere I needed to go. the only other trip I took was a little 1 hour ride across the Mississippi in New Orleans.
Arriving at Startz bay, Emily took me down an old rail line turned into a road for a nice lesuirely introduction to Vancouver Island. We ended up going down a flower farm, where about ten people had gathered to pain and sketch the flowers. I hadn't seen something like that in a long time...the flower fields were just a beautiful explosion of colors. Slowly but surely, we made our way through rural Saanich to Victoria, proper - eventually going through town towards Beacon Hill Park and Mile 0 on the Transcanada Highway with brief glimpses of the Inner Harbour and the Parliament Buildings. Like the Pan American Highway, this incredibly long stretch of road begins as a smallish park road by the ocean.
We took a look up and down Dallas road, skirting the edge of the ocean, and stopped and admired the view from Clover Point (not only can you see the US and Port Angeles from here - but my cell phone was picking up the American T-Mobile towers...take THAT Roger's Wireless and your insane roaming fees!)
In order to make that first ferry, I simply got up and got out, not taking care of any of the early morning amenities. I was feeling scuzzy - so we decidedto get in contact with our Victoria hostess,
salamanders. We made our way back to Victoria, HQ, and rested our weary bones and cleaned up for the second half of the day.Cait, Emily and I went downtown for some shopping and sightseeing, hitting several comic stores, head shops, noveltiy stores and book stores. I actually had to explain that the covers for the American Harry Potter books were MUCH better than the International ones after either Cait or Emily had said they didn't like the way the new covers looked. Or maybe it was me. I can't remember. I'm not enough of a Harry Potter fan to remember. We also saw the World Headquarters for the Smoking Lily - an itty bitty store about five feet wide and fifteen feet long. Maximum occupancy TWO. Not for the claustrophobic
From there, we went to Victoria's Chinatown and Tan Fan Alley.
This was everything Vancouver's Chinatown was not. Vancouver's chinatown seemed to be a in a rather warehousy part of town, and while I wasn't expecting A Little Piece of Home, I was kind of expecting more than the Southeast Side of San Antonio. Victoria's is much much much more lively, with what a rather intimate stage nearby, stores with histories as Chinese Speakeasies, and tons and tons of Chinese food galore. One thing I won't be missing should I ever move to the Pacific Northwest - the Chinese food.
After running around downtown, and looking in on a KFC to see if Poutine was on the menu (I've heard it was, but I couldn't find it) we headed over for a visit to the Beacon Hill Park Petting Zoo (Welcome to Canada - I'm a jumping billy goat!).
The Beacon Hill Petting Zoo was a bit of a mind warper for me, not because of the zoo, but because I really got to see how different the attitudes of Canadians and Americans really are, and how our different experiences make for different attitudes.
1) While in the park, a muslim family was walking around, with the mother of the group in full hijab and niqab. I'd seen Hijab, before, in the US, and usually the folks wearing it are very harried, hurried and have the same look I get when I'm made fun of/laughed at and mocked in hiushed tones. Here, not only was someone in Hijab and niqab, but they were enjoying a leisurely day in the park. I noticed this for one reason - I'd never seen that before. Anywhere. Full islamic hijab AND enjoying their day. 9/11 has made pariahs of muslims in the US...sad really. And I'm prolly a bad person for even noticing her. I'm very quickly becoming a fan of the Live and Let Live attitude Canadians have.
2) Leaving the park we passed a group of religious protesters who were talking about protesting amongst themselves. We couldn't tell WHAT they were protesting, only that the signs had bible quotes. They were generally soft spoken and just tlaking among themselves. When we walked passed them, Emily was given a pamphlet that she refused. He simply said "that's alright" and went back to his talking. As someone who had a friend who was a protester, I can honestly say even Canadian intolerance in more polite. :)
The final leg of the journey was to Glendale Gardens. Cait's aunt and uncle are the caretakers of it, so we got in for free, and even got to visit the caretakers house. And WHAT A HOUSE.
IT was a rustic cabin tucked away in the shrubs, flowers and trees, almost completely hidden from the main gardens. It was BEAUTIFUL. And its their house till they stop being the caretakers. Supposedly there's a LONG list of folks waiting for the house after them - they're going to be waiting a long time.
The garden pics speak for themselves, and look better than I could ever describe them using words. i r a riter but not gooder for that. You can see the pics here ( http://www.dolari.dragondata.net/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=2063&g2_page=4 ) and on the next FIVE pages.
FRom there, we hit a local grocery store for Canadian Specific snacks and taking pics. The winner of the MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY DON'T MAKE THIS HERE PLEASE START award goes to Tandoori Sizzler Doritos:
We also picked up some take home candies, and I nearly walked away with a box of Shreddies, before I realized I had twenty boxes of cereal already at home. Many candies and snacks and Orange Crush (you can get it in the US, but not around here!) we were set snack wise...but not quite yet.
You see...there was one place we hadn't hit yet. And while I had my Canadian Content for the day...I hadn't hit one place JUST yet.
One box of random Timbits and two Ice Caps later, we all returned back to Cait's for even MORE CanCon, a movie called Love and Human Remains. Which is a creepy little disjointed movie about gay love and dominatrixes and drugs and serial killers. Good movie, even if I couldn't grasp how most of that was interconnected. Afterwards we saw a Sitcom about Seskatchewan called Corner Gas. This is coming to the US on WGN in September. I expect you all to sit down and watch it. ALL of you. I'm looking at you, North Dakota. It's like Twin Peaks if Seinfeld had written it.
"
I walked away from Canada with about four seasons of this, and it's totally worth it.
I'd been running out of pictures on my camera (I'd taken almost 1300 pictures at this time) so I decided to consolidate them all on my phone. They were all transferred from the camera to the phone, only to have the USB SD card reader adapter flake out on me, turning my pictures into unreadbale directories. Before I managed to stop the destruction, I'd lost almost a day and a half of pictures. Which is sad, because there were a LOT of AWFW cloud pictures I wanted, inclusing pictures of Mount Rainier poking out of a cloudbank. And everyone got to hear me curse like a sailor under my breath - just like I do at work!
IT was a fitful night, but eventually, I went to sleep - my last day in Victoria awaited.
