So, where did I leave off with this journalling my west coast vacation thing before my Internet access was so rudely interrupted by the total lack of time and opportunity presented to me during our jaunt up-island and extended stay at Rainbow’s peculiarly Internet-free apartment…

Monday, Justin and I walked around downtown Victoria a bit. We did a lot of window shopping, made some disastrous attempts to help me buy clothes, and took a look at the local book and comic shops. I eventually succeeded in finding vestments at Roots, where I bought an entire Great Britain Olympic team outfit, and we purchased some tea at Murchies that I cannot wait to get home and into my teapot, but the day was plagued by brief instances of me freaking out due to unfortunate tummy aches on the part of both JVL and I, and my total inability to enter a change room under ordinary circumstances without blowing a mental gasket at the sudden, unavoidable visible confirmation that I am rapidly becoming a chubalump. Anyhow, all in all a lovely day, which we concluded with a nice, home cooked meal from C&C.

Tuesday – the day of exploring north Vancouver Island with Caius and Cait – was lovely, full of big trees and fresh air. We stopped a few times to take photos and observe the magnificent views acorded to us by the winding roadways, deep drops, and wide expanses of water on our way up the eastern coast of the island. A pause for some “Serious Coffee” (that’s actually the name of the coffee shop, I love it), lead to a brief detour west to visit a small micro-brewery of CIDER. Yes, we did the cider-making tour where we walked through a bit of the orchard, saw the presses and the fermentation vats and the bottling machinery, then went in for a sampling of the dry to sweet ciders. We then spend *a lot of money* on apple liqueurs and cider to bring home. Samples of Merrivale Cider will be available at the basement bar in Weston upon our return. Visit if you dare. I finally, at long last, got to walk through Cathedral Grove and take a look at what 800 year old trees can do when left to their own devices. Pretty fucking awesome. We proceeded on towards ‘s ancestral home in Courtenay, touring through a town full of groovy murals, and stopping at Coombs, a corner store with goats grazing on it’s grassy rooftop, where I purchased rooibos tea for my Mum, a deck of cards, a giraffe mask, and a silly quantity of dried fruit and nut mix, the bananananana chips portion of which I later spilled all over the floor of the minivan. will be finding tiny bits of freeze-dried banana in there for many years to come. After swinging through Nanaimo we finally, at long last, came to the hospitable home of Ed’s mum, who fed us delicious food and delicious tea and showed us her beautiful quilts. We spoke for a long time about crime and punishment, and boy scouts and all manner of other things, then did the dishes, played some weird 15-spot dominoes and when it was time for sleep, JVL and I walked in the absolute lightless pitch black from the house down the road to the guest cabin with our ineffectual flashlight.

Wednesday – Wake up, eat yummy egg scramble brekkies with Ed’s mum, then down for some baked lunch at the Old House, where Ed’s daddy used to work, then RACE to the fast foot ferry to Vancouver!!! I had some bad tummy ache going on in the car there too, and forgot my soothing crossword puzzle book in the car during the last leg of the sprint to buy tickets for the boat, but otherwise our first ferry trip was relatively smooth and uneventful, and taught us the valuable lesson that it is possible, perhaps even likely, that one can catch a ferry even if one arrives a good five minutes after said ferry should technically have sailed. Particularly if it’s raining, because apparently boats are afraid of water, or something. Anyhow, we got to the mainland, then proceeded to buy a map, lose all sense of perspective, and WALK from the SeaBus terminal to Main and Broadway to meet JVL’s buddy Nick. This takes us about an hour and a half. We chill with Nick, then get picked up by Rainbow in his sweet ride. I bought him a lot of booze for the house, then he takes us home and introduces us to his lovely girlfriend, cooks us an amaaaaazing steak dinner with biscuits and caramelized onions and yams and it was tasty and we crank called our roommate in Toronto and fun was had by all.

More tales of Vancouver, including meeting MacGyver(!!!) coming tomorrow, or whenever we wake up enough to use the computer again after the jet lag wears off.