Busy busy week coming up. So much to do and so little time to do it in. I start my Leave of absence in just under 5 days and then Kate and I will be on the road again.

Tomorrow is packed with a museum trip – Something I have been really looking forward to for a bit now. I have heard nothing but good things about the Royal BC Museum, and it has been something we have put off seeing for a long time. We will also be seeing the 2 latest IMAX films – We figure we might as well see them all before our trip.

Thursday we plan on going to Parksville and Qualicum for the day. We have been up there twice since we have been on the island, and I find it stunning. Before moving to the island, I have only experianced lakes, and rocky beaches. I love having the opportunity to walk along the sandy shores, that strech for miles.

On Friday Rhian and Alan will be flying out. I am looking forward to seeing them again.

It has been a busy last few months, lots of work, lots of work at home too. After several weeks, we have finally managed to get both bikes up and on the road – it was quite the task. We had mine repaired, and not 2 days after getting it back, the tire died on it again. Luckily the bike shop replaced it again at no charge–damned faulty inner tubes. They were quite good despite the issue of the tire.

Today we finally had the chance to go out and enjoy the bikes. I am glad to find that we didn’t lose to much of what we had gained from the bikes last summer. We had little issue with the hills. This time last year we would have never been able to ride like we did today.

We were out biking for close to 4 hours. we ended up going down to the rocky beach down in Oak Bay and sat on the beach for about half an hour, before continuing down the scenic rout down to Ogden Point (where the cruise ship launch from) We ended up down on Fisherman’s Wharf and having this wonderful meal of fresh local fish and chips, while the harbour seals played just bellow us.

The Wharf itself is an interesting sight, wonderful fresh local fish can be bought to take home, or eaten right on site, whale watching and harbour tours launch from there as well. The character of the building at the wharf was amazing. there were some 30 “floating homes” of all different colour, size and shap. Some ranging from little bachelor sizes homes to a massive 2 floor home with the roff as a large balcony. Definitely a sight to see.

All and all, we spent about 4 hours in the lovely 32 degree weather biking around this beautiful island. It was a wonderful day, and a real treat.

Friday : Eric and Leseen visited and we had a great dinner. They taught me to play Chinese Checkers. We drank way too much tea-we were all floating on it but hey, c’est la vie. They are definitely decent company.

…Then we decided, since it was late already, why bother sleeping, I mean, we had to be up at 530am anyway, to catch the bus to get the early ferry to the mainland.

We caught a few zzz’s on the ferry, and saturday,

…was spent moving through Vancouver with Dev’s family. Finally met his sister. Everyone was so loud and bright and cheerful, it was great fun to wander everywhere with them.

We saw the Olympic Torch (Extinguished, but still…) and took the sky train everywhere. Vancouver is VAST and so jam packed with people and buildings and industry. They have a beautiful and enormous harbour, with mountains fringing it. We took the seabus to North Vancouver, where they have this really intriguing hidden market on the quay. I think it would be a good place for my dad to sell his pots.

Caught the last ferry back to the island, caught the last bus home, totally crashed.

It was so great to get out and spend a day on the mainland, with everyone. I really enjoyed myself.  Really had a lot of fun.

Sunday: chillaxing. Slept in. Took it easy. One of the Tim Horton’s we frequent also now has a creamery. So we indulged in hot java and cold ice cream. The Cold Stone Creamery section had just opened-we were among the first customers. Dev had a cheesecake fantasy and I had choc cake batter and oreo ice cream. We were offered lids if we wanted it “to go”.

We managed to make it out to Edmonton after all for the week. And we have finally managed to catch up on some sleep. Friday ended up being a fairly hectic day as we rushed to get our things packed for the trip. No one knew that we were coming out save my brother and Aaron. Our parents reactions were priceless. I do love it when surprises work out as planned.

Saturday was a day for family. We spent the day with my mother, and the evening with Kate’s family. Both families ended up having big meals that day, so we were stuffed by the end of it. Exhausted and full, we came back to my mother’s place and tried to sleep.

Sunday was Aaron’s birthday. We went to dinner at Chianti’s, a wonderful Italian restaurant on Whyte. There were a lot of friends, and many we had not met before. It was a good night, nice to see everyone again.

Our week is still mostly up in the air. But sofar it is looking like good times.

Dusk//

Been a pretty good weekend. We had Kate’s sister and friend come into town on Sunday. I picked them up from the ferry, and then the adventure began. The plan was to go to the Merridale Cidery. Apparently it was an hour outside of Victoria. So I programmed the address into my GPS and was surprised to see it was only 20km from the ferries. Excellent! we will get there nice and early. Except the GPS wanted us to drive through the ocean. No as much as I would like to have an amphibious car, I don’t have the means to drive through the ocean. Okay fair enough. My GPS could just be screwy. Sometimes that happens with software. So Sharon pulls out her GPS. And the same thing happened again.

Well this is no good. We will just have to head back into town and go from there. We managed to make it back to Victoria, despite the two GPS systems yelling different directions at us in an attempt to prove superiority over the other (we listened to neither at this point). At this point they both start agreeing again, and we start out to the cidery once again. Just to have them send us into off-road/private road routes. Most likely at this point the just wanted to watch the humans dance to their tune. Again we make it back to the highway and drive a bit further, and the system sends us on this long circuitous route. But finally we are there.

So we went in, had our tasting, bought some cider and decided it was time for lunch. It was raining so we sat in the car, and started listening to some music. And apparently we listened to it for a little too long; we killed the battery.

So off to find jumper cables I go. Of course no one has any, and I finally cave and call a tow truck. Right atfer, Rhian asks some people who just pulled up if they had any jumper cables. Nope. of course not. What the did have however, was muscle power. I drive a standard, and there is this neat trick called a push start. So we push my car down a hill, and thank the gods, it worked.

Of course we still hadn’t learned with the GPS, and we try to follow it back home. Only for it to send us to to the same closed roads. At this point we figure they might as well be speaking Norwegian as the directions fron the device were utterly useless. So we sett it to Norwegian, We figured it was actually more helpful this way, as at least we now know how to say “Turn Left”

~Dusk

After near 3 month, I finally get a weekend off. Should be a fairly busy one too, as Kate’s sister will be in town for Sunday. We will be heading to a cidery, and hopefully will get to spends some time at a beach for a picnic.

We go on vacation in a couple more weeks here, of to Edmonton. Certianly not the most exciting trip, but it is still some travel. It will be nice to gather some more of our stuff. I think we both need a break from work.

So time to do an update.

We have now been in Victoria for just under three weeks. Setup has been slow but we are getting there. The basics are covered – we have a place, jobs, food on the table.

It is beautiful out here – no where near as rainy as Vancouver, nice and temperate – almost every day has been sitting at about 20C. Sadly we have yet to do too much exploring – we have only done the tourist bit once. Everything is in nice and close proximity so we can walk everywhere. Right out side our place, we have a path that takes us straight to Victoria (which is actually a really small area like 10 blocks by 10 blocks type small), the other way the path can take us to Shwartz Bay (where the ferries from Vancouver come in). We plan on exploring these paths in the coming weeks.

Our immediate plans are to get a set of bicycles. everything is close enough that we can all but park the car. We can walk to work/Victoria in approximently 45 minutes.

Everything in this area is beautiful. There is a lot of older architecture, adding a lot of character to the city. The legislative grounds are a good deal smaller than the Edmonton, but what the grounds lack in size, they more than make up for in athsetics. Parliment looks out onto the Inner Harbour, and there is holly surounding the grounds. At night the Parliment bulding is lit up on the edges with LEDs. It really is a remarkable sight. Then there is the Fairmount Empress hotel. It is built in the same style as the Hotel Macdonald, but dwarfs it in size. With any luck we will be able to get some pictures up soon.

~Dusk ||