Victoria Vignette

On Memorial Day we headed down to the waterfront, parked in our Secret Parking Spot, and strolled on over to the Victoria Clipper. The lines weren’t bad, and we got the bonus of pre-boarding thanks to our little munchkin. We got all settled down at the front of the cabin like last time, but this was a smaller boat so there weren’t video screens playing the Disney cartoon de jour for Zoey to watch.

By 8:07 we were well under way and I took this shot of Zoey with my camera phone. (It has a handy timestamp feature.)

Zoey was in high form, flirting with the passengers and pretending to be a doggie. (8:45 am)

But keeping up to all those shenanigans is a lot of work, as we see below, at 9:31 am, still en route to Victoria.

Contrary to appearances, Zoey’s Mommy isn’t snoozing here, but instead fighting seasickness. This trip we were far far more weather-tossed or wake-tossed, and while I heard tell of at least one fellow traveler tossing her cookies, we all avoided any tossage other than Zoey’s occasional food flinging.

Once we arrived in Victoria we headed to Indian Curry House, located on Fort Street between Wharf & Langley on the way to Market Square from the harbor and the Empress Hotel. It’s right next to a Thai place we want to try next time. The food at Indian Curry House didn’t agree with Rona, but Zoey and I liked it well enough. It’s menu-style, not buffet.

From there we headed to a little market in China Town to buy some fruit, to a metaphysical store in an alley I’ll call “Knockturn Alley” as I can’t recall its actual name, and then off to Market Square for some more browsing. Market Square is not a stroller-friendly (or wheelchair-friendly) place unless you just want to visit those shops with street-level doors. Among the externally-accessable establishments there are a decent Mexican restaurant and LuLu Lemon, which sells yoga clothing and mats to the hip and trendy. We didn’t visit those places this time around, though, instead portaging the stroller up and down various staircases to browse a different metaphysical shop.

We headed off to whatever block-encompassing multi-story mall is not far from the Empress Hotel, to partake of their tables for fruit eating and their other facilities for, um, facilitating.

I’m not quite sure where this should appear to keep this entry chronological, but at 3:15 pm we saw this silver statue mime lady entertaining passersby across the street from the Empress Hotel:

We walked to the Beacon Hill Park Childrens’ Farm to prove to Zoey that farm animals don’t actually make the same noises as dogs, which is her firm belief. She of course passed out on the way to the park. Once we found the actual petting zoo we sat on a bench next to the sheep enclosure until one of the lambs managed to bleat Zoey awake. A modest suggested donation later (a few American dollars or the equivalent in Canadian change) we entered the Childrens’ Farm.

Zoey loved looking at all the critters. She saw sheep, pot-bellied pigs, a miniature horse and donkey living together in miniature sin (and possibly pondering miniature mules), bunnies, peacocks (and pea hens), and the hands-on feature: adorable little goats who liked to adorably baaaah, adorably jump up like poorly-trained puppies, adorably poop, and adorably chew on clothing. I think Z was a little freaked out by their unpredictable behavior, or perhaps that they acted very strange for doggies. She might have got a few pats in here or there. Photos from Rona’s camera will hit the gallery once we get the CD back from Sam’s Club and I get around to posting them.

From the Childrens’ Farm we trekked back to downtown Victoria in search of some grub. Last time we bought a pizza at a coffee shop (wacky Canadians!) which turned out to be exactly like a Pizza Hut pizza. That might be fine if you’re at Pizza Hut, but it’s completely disconcerting if you are at a little shop that purports to have just made your pizza. I remembered seeing a deli, but we had a lot of trouble finding it. Finally we spotted a different deli (Sam’s Deli, 1 block north of the Empress Hotel on Government). Zoey had a great time flirting with the sandwich makers and various patrons, and had her very own turkey on rye. The sandwiches there were good, although they were made on sliced sandwich bread and were thus not filling enough for dinner.

From thence we hied past the Empress yet again, this time passing a different-hued mime statue person (gold, I think) on our way to catch our ship. Boarding was again painless, and this time we chose a set of four seats with a table in the middle.

The ride back was much more exhausting than the ride there, as Zoey was overtired and cranky, and we had to be quite silly and otherwise distractional to keep her smiling instead of crying. She made fast friends with the lady sitting behind Rona, so she took some of the entertainment burden off of us. I started taking photos of Zoey close up with the camera phone at around 8:45, and she thought that it was a riot when I would take her picture and show it to her on the phone.

Here’s Miss Hilarious, Tired Seasick Mommy, and New Best Friend Lady:

We disembarked sans difficulty, found Zoey’s Minivan as we had left it, and headed home to scoop our sleeping niña into her bed.

Another successfully fun day trip to a foreign land…