My Rambling Journal

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on. Henry Ellis ****************************************************************** Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada

It took us about 4 hours to arrive at our next port: Victoria, BC. In the darkness, pulling into our berth, we could see to the starboard side millions of lights outlining the house of parliment, welcoming all visitors to her city.


Earlier in the evening:
During dinner tonight, we spied a passenger getting jello for dessert. We thought this sort of funny, and asked our waitress if she could bring us some jello too, but make it JELLO SHOTS! Soon a group of waitstaff approached our table with small glasses of jello in vodka! (no time to atually make the jello shots, this was a creative substitute) Great fun, downing the shots and soon the head chef was at our table, checking out the passengers who had such a strange but fun request. The chef, Seth, volunteered to make us a concoction which would take a couple of days but that he thought we would like....

A few of agents (including me!) ended up closing the lounge down quite late (2am)tonight....Bill had gone into Victoria to the bar where some of the crew were going, but the girls stayed on the boat. We had quite a jolly time, experimenting with various drinks. After a bit, some of the crew joined in the festivities and before we knew it, the bartender was bringing us Cosmos! We all had a great time.

Next morning, most of the ship's passengers seemed to know that we had had a 'party' the night before and greeted us with "late night, huh?". Not much gets past the folks on one of these small ships.

The schedule for the morning was to take a bus to Butchart Gardens. As we disembarked the ship we saw a quaint, red, English double-decker bus awaiting us. At the rear of the bus, lay a light pole, and it looked suspiciously as if our bus had mowed it down. Nancy, Bill and I climbed the stairs to the upper deck of the bus and waited for departure. Soon the engine started and the cluch groaned. The bus lurched forward tentatively, and after a few jerks we were on our way up the hill out of the port area......oops....The engine was now silent and we were still on the hill, so slowly the driver backs the bus down. Looking out the window it was now clear that he had forgotten to turn away from the edge of the parking lot and it appeared from our angle that we would soon be backing straight into the water. The entire bus shouted out all at once "STOP!" Stopping in the nick of time, the driver now introduced himself to us over the PA system. "Hello folks, my name is Stephen and I am new to the company. Did we take out another light standard? I guess I may not be with the company too long the way this is going, huh? Lets make another go of it, shall we?"
Another attempt at the hill ends the same way, this time Stephen suggested we might all want to leave the bus and PUSH him out! The third attempt succeeds only because the passengers are looking for oncoming traffic, giving the go ahead and Stephen only needs to drive like HELL> We are all just glad to have survived...so far.

Strolling through the beautiful manicured grounds of Butchart Gardens made for a fine morning.





The pictures tell the story.

After lunch back on the ship, Diana joined Nancy and I for a stroll around the city of Victoria. Our ship sits in a perfect spot in the harbor, directly in front of the Empress Hotel. The Empress was opened in 1906 and is a magnificent lady of the harbor. High tea is served here every afternoon at 4pm. We did not attend high tea, due to the prohibitive cost, and we had no gloves!



coming up next: Saying 'goodbye' to Victoria, bound for Jervis Inlet and Powell River. See you for the next installment!

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

BARBIE DOLL!

I never knew you were going till after or the day B4. I try to find all stuff about U from Janny Goat. It looked like an adventure.

Now get to work on that lower level. Make it sing. You have such an artistic soul. I wont be there this year but maybe early next. Love you is not enough to say.

1:57 PM  

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