You say Clamato...

Happy Easter Monday! I am pretty hungover as I write this so apologies in advance. Easter in Vancouver is fun! Well, if you make it fun. I came home from work to an amazing egg hunt round the apartment which took me an embarrassingly long time to complete. And we did THREE egg hunts at work, which basically meant hiding mini eggs underneath phones and shit. FUN FUN FUN. 

A couple of weeks ago we finally made to Vancouver Island to visit Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. And it was, well, fine. The ferry ride over was really pretty as it weaves its way through all the islands to get there. We did have a sticky moment at the ferry terminal where we thought we’d be all smart and use the self-serve ticket machines to avoid the queue. This resulted in our tickets getting blown away by the wind and us not knowing which boat to get on. Clever dicks. We stayed in a hostel which was really cheap so we couldn’t really complain about the rubbish bed and massive noise/broken windows etc. But it was in a nice area and really close to Downtown.

So...Downtown Victoria. I don’t want it to sound like we didn’t have a lovely time because we did. But, Victoria is a little sleepy for our liking. And there are tons and tons of “British pubs”. I use the annoying quotation marks because all of the bars were basically a Yates’, or a Wetherspoons, or an Edwards (haha). We even tried a bar which said it was named after The Smiths which sounded promising but ended up just having a big Union Jack carpet. We also tried the only gay bar in the village which was upstairs in a hotel. Not a good sign! 

 

Ash on Victoria beach

Luckily we found a really fun bar called Big Bad John’s which was done up like a shack, with bras pinned all over the walls and monkey nuts all over the floor. We only wanted 1 beer but the busty barmaid used this weird contraption to let down a plastic horse on our heads to ask if we wanted another. Totally weird, and totally up my street. 

The downtown harbour was pretty and it must get super busy in Summer. I wanted to go on a whale tour (unusual for me) but Ash wasn’t up for it. So instead, we had a really fun afternoon on the beach which was beautiful and pretty deserted. I found an octopus head to play with AND a golf ball. So we got crazy golf too! Proper seaside holiday. Ash also got to try tons of coffee now that she’s proper good at it. I’ve warned her against becoming a coffee bore several times and so far she’s on the right side of things. 

Seawall

We found 2 really great restaurants, one of which had a giant pig head in the toilet. SOLD. Lots of small plates going on, but we had some great BC wine and hardly anyone noticed when I knocked over my chair really loudly and then smacked into the waitress. Victoria certainly does breakfast well too. Most places had a separate Eggs Benedict menu so you can’t go too wrong there. All in all, we had a lovely time, including managing to find a Cadbury’s Twirl in a sweet shop. I’m not sure that we would hurry back to Victoria, but the rest of Vancouver Island looks like a must-see because the coastline is beautiful.

Back in Vancouver, we finally managed to walk the entire seawall last week, accompanied by some sea otters at one point which was cute. It was one of those days where we both remembered how pretty Vancouver is as a city. We took a picnic and it really was stunning. Summer is on its way and I can’t wait. There’s a few swimming pools by the beaches as well which remind me of Skegness. 

We also went to see another hockey game. Our friend is in a women’s team called The Bellinis and we got to watch them play which was cold but really fun. And they won, despite it going to (slightly longwinded) penalties. 

Ash burnt her hand pretty badly a couple of weeks ago which was a fun night. She managed to sandwich her straighteners around her thumb for a little while. It was pretty bad and she had to sleep with her hand in a bucket of ice water. On reflection it probably didn’t help that I told her that would make her wet the bed too. It seems to be healing now though so she’s back on the lattes at work.

GROSS

Mo’nique the mouse has been causing us some distress over the last couple of weeks. She is too light for the traps, and hates any bait that we put on them anyway. I have resorted to trying to whack her with Ash’s copy of His Dark Materials which I’m sure has some deeper significance. Needless to say my literal games of cat and mouse with her have failed. We haven’t seen her in 2 days now though and we’re concerned that she’s either dead, or she’s retreated to her birthing space to fill our tiny flat with thousands of rodent babies. And I definitely can’t kill a baby.

 

It also occurred to me that I’ve blogged quite a few times and haven’t mentioned the weird North American phenomenon which is Clamato juice. It is exactly what it sounds like; tomato juice with DRIED CLAM in it. Why????? It is massive over here. I finally tried it in a Caesar cocktail which is a bit like a bloody mary. It tasted like gazpacho with vodka and fish sauce. Probably the worst drink ever.

We have yet to win the local quiz, which is damaging my self esteem, no matter how many times I tell myself that the questions are just ‘too Canadian’. Oh, and there was a slightly tense moment when we worried we might be under investigation for fraud because the company we came with messed up and told us the same Social Insurance number. So we’ve both been earning under one number. It would seem it can be easily remedied, but going by the luck we’ve had since we arrived with these sort of things, my next blog might be from prison. 

We have plans afoot for our next trip which I think will be a big one so can’t wait for that. And we’re going for a weekend to a cabin with some friends at the end of the month which should be really fun. Especially because the phrase “it might be easier if we just rowed to the pub” has been used. We all know how that’s going to end.

Love Stella x