Victoria: Putting The 'British' In British Columbia...

In all the hulla-balloo of moving to London, I haven't had two seconds speak about the Vancouver portion of our Canada trip.

Before I delve into Vancouver, let me share with you a few pictures of our little detour to B.C's capital, Victoria, located on Vancouver Island. As lovely as the city is, Victoria still seems an odd choice for the province's capital, especially considering that Vancouver has seven times its population. So, of course, I asked my knowledgable pal Wikipedia. In a nutshell, Victoria was the capital of the colony 'Vancouver Island', and when the latter was combined with British Columbia to become one super province, they just kept Victoria as the capital. So there you go; that might be useful in a pub quiz someday.

By the looks of it, it hasn't hurt their tourism industry either. Along the tree-lined high streets, there were souvenir shops abound, each luring tourists into their kitchy clutches with cute stuffed toys the size of Patrick. I also love how Victorian shops and pubs seem genuinely proud of their 'Britishness'. (I was going to make a rude comment of how Victorians are more patriotic than British people than British people themselves, but we're actually pretty pleased with ourselves at the moment, thanks to Olympians and a certain Scottish tennis player).

Ahem...anyway. More about Victoria. We mostly spent the day drinking in a Scottish pub, admiring the lovely ivy-covered Empress hotel, and venturing into the Indian-themed 'Bombay Bar'. Was the tiger skin on the wall real? Nobody in the bar seemed to know; answers on a postcard please.

Lasting impression of Victoria: a fresh, sparkling, quaint city, village-like yet with the odd modern touch. Definitely worth a visit, but word of warning: if you catch the last bus for the last ferry back to Vancouver, do not ask the bus driver if you will get to the ferry on time. You will get varying sarcastic responses, ranging from the tame 'Now you've said that, it'll take 2 minutes more' to 'Maybe I'll just stop and pick up my shopping to delay you a bit longer'. Seems they've even adopted British sarcasm...

Killer whales. Not fat dolphins, as I originally thought.

Dima, Dan and Patrick walking towards the Empress Hotel.

The Indian-themed bar inside the Empress.

Despite the bus driver's sarcasm, we made the last ferry!