Victoria

I always knew that I would love British Columbia.  Partially because the word "British" is in it, yes, I'll admit to that.  Victoria is the capitol city of BC, located just West of Vancouver, just North of Seattle.  It's gorgeous!  The Parliament building is what's pictured here.  Beautiful old Victorian style architecture is very present here.  However, there are also many more modern buildings because this city is more than governmental, but it's a definite vacation spot.  It's smaller, slower, calmer than many big cities.  It rained all day, but that never stops me from exploring.  Victoria is a lot like if you took San Francisco and mixed it with Brighton, England...then shrunk it.  Does that make sense?  It's very unique and adorable.

Getting here was fun...haha  My flight to Seattle was awesome--smooth, snack included, I even slept a bit :-)  The Sea-Tac airport is kind of a mess.  I was SO confused...and it took 3 cycles of Asian languages on the loud speaker to get to English (haha, not used to that), I had to take 3 different trams to get to my right gate without much signage, mostly on instinct.  The flight from Seattle to Victoria was really crappy.  Small little 50 seater plane going through clouds for fun, I think.  Good thing it was only a 30 minute flight!  Right when I got my luggage and got through customs (it was surprisingly almost a hassle...they didn't quite believe what my occupation was, it made me so nervous that my response wasn't very articulate, so maybe that's why :-P) I saw outside, all the green!!!  Huge tree groves, mountains, hills, trees, trees, and more trees.  Then I had to take a super-shuttle-like bus to the hotel, took an hour because of all the stops and finally I was at Strathcona Hotel.  It's charming but the rooms are super small and outdated.  There was a silver fish in my bathtub.  Not cool.  I have yet to find an iron...and I start work in an hour, so I should try to remedy that or I'll be wrinkly...  The staff and restaurant are great, and they have a cd release party on the roof (in the rain--doesn't seem to stop Canadians) tonight and it sounds pretty cool, hopefully I'll be able to listen from work!  

That's all for now.  I think I'm going to make the 3 mile walk to a castle tomorrow.  Rain or shine :-)