So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish

I left the fair city of Victoria at 4:30 Monday morning in order to catch my 6:00 flight at Victoria International, which is approximately 25 miles outside of the city. Having been there for five days, I was quite ready to be heading home. Don't get me wrong...Victoria is an incredible city. It is a beautiful little place, where the people are friendly, and nearly all of the women are quite pleasing to the eye. (Parenthetically...I'm not quite sure what it is that makes people who live somewhere that you don't live seem much more attractive than those who live near you.) We spent at least a few hours every night hanging out at a little pub called The Old Bailey that was adjacent to our hotel. The staff at the bar certainly lived up to my previous description of residents of Victoria. By the time we left, we were on a first name basis with all of them and they, in turn, were familiar with our names and what kinds of drinks we each preferred. It's funny that in four years of living in Los Angeles I have been unable to obtain "regular status" at any bars or restaurants in the area. Yet, after just five days in Victoria, I was able to do just that.

I should clarify that when I say there is very little to do in Victoria, I am referring only to the city. Vancouver Island itself is a natural wonder that could conceivably take weeks to explore. Since I was low on money and really just in town for the wedding, I didn't have much of a chance to explore the island. I am determined to return someday and do just that.

I was the first one from the group to arrive in Victoria, as I got there using frequent flier miles and basically had to fly when the airline told me that I could. It was either that or spend approximately 600 to 900 dollars on airfare... something which I, as a starving student, could not have afforded to do. So, I found myself alone on the island for the first day and a half. As I said before, the city is quite small and I more or less explored the entire place before the others arrived. By the time they got there, I was able to describe restaurants and attractions by specific location.

"McDonald's? Yeah...there's one on the corner of Douglas and Head Street."

"Parliament? Yeah...that's over near the Harbor on Government Street...right next to The Empress Hotel."

(Like you no doubt just were, I was surprised to learn that Victoria is the capital of British Columbia. I mean, really...it's a small little out-of-the-way city that is fairly isolated from the rest of the province. One would expect a capital city to be a little more "in the thick of things." Not that Sacramento is exactly a burgeoning metropolis...but it at least makes sense as a capital. More than likely, my reaction here is just a product of my disappointment at realizing that I had been wrong all these years in assuming that Vancouver was the capital. But then, it was only within the last couple years that I discovered the capital of Australia is Canberra, not Sydney.)

My first night in Victoria, I stayed at a little bed and breakfast on the outskirts of town called Cottage Pirouette. It was the first time I'd ever stayed at a bed and breakfast, and I must confess that the whole experience was a little odd. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was a great place to stay. The thing is...it just kind of felt as if I was staying at somebody else's house. Essentially, that's what I was doing. I arrived at about 12:30 in the afternoon and was shown to my room upstairs. I was shown where the bathroom was, where the towels were and was informed that breakfast would be served at 8:30 in the morning.

As I hadn't really slept much the night before, I laid down in my room and took a brief nap, waking up at about 4:00 in the afternoon. After taking a shower, I decided to head out to explore. I found a little walkway that led from my neighborhood along the coastline to downtown. It was about a forty minute walk or so, and with my constant meandering and stopping to gaze at the quaint little houseboats, I added an additional thirty minutes. I arrived downtown at about 6:00 and found a restaurant near the water where the menu consisted mostly of seafood. This was, of course, not surprising as the bulk of the economy in the town seems to be based upon seafood. As near as I could tell, most of the businesses in town were either restaurants, tourist attractions or somehow related to the daily administration of British Columbia.

As I would on several occasions over the next few days, I ate fish for dinner that night. I believe that night it was catfish but, honestly, all of the types of fish I ate eventually blended together so that the only thing that really stands out was when I spent about $75 (Canadian) on crab legs on Saturday night. The last time I had crab legs was a little more than a year ago while dining in Newport Beach. The crab legs I had on Saturday in Victoria, however, were far better than the ones from Newport Beach.

I returned to the bed and breakfast at about ten o'clock that night, feeling as if I was somehow doing something wrong by returning home so late. The lights were all off, and I convinced myself that I had to creep up the stairs and be as quiet as possible, lest I somehow end up grounded for the weekend and not allowed to attend the wedding on Sunday.

I climbed into bed and breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that the owners were unaware that I had gotten home so late. Much to my dismay, there was a quiet knock on my door. With much trepidation, I opened the door to find the proprietor standing there. I was expecting to be lectured on responsibility and informed how decent young men don't stay out until 10:00 at night. I even imagined that she would go so far as to pull out a copy of Highlights and read a Goofus and Gallant cartoon aloud to me. ("Gallant comes home when his mother tells him to." versus "Goofus stays out past curfew and doesn't call home.")

The feared lecture was not forthcoming, however. She simply wanted to inform me that breakfast would be at 9:00 instead of 8:30. She then bade me good evening and returned downstairs...thus leaving me in my room to think about what I'd done wrong.

The next morning, I checked out of the bed and breakfast and caught the bus over to the Quality Inn at the corner of Blanshard and Courtney streets. When I arrived at the hotel, there were two strikes against me. Number one, it was only noon and the room would not be ready until 3:00. Number two, the room in which I was staying was booked in somebody else's name. After speaking to the hotel manager, I managed to convince them that I was supposed to be staying in that room. In a striking example of good customer service that is rarely found here in Southern California, the manager ordered the cleaning staff to have the room made ready for me right away. I went to have lunch and then returned at 1:00, when I was allowed to check in. This was a great relief, as the person who had booked the room was not due to arrive until 10:00 that night. That would have required me to drag my luggage all over the city all day, thus making me appear to be a homeless man. Of course, I could have used that opportunity to beg money from compassionate tourists such as myself.

I spent most of the day wandering in and out of the hotel, pestering the really cute concierge to find out if anybody from my group had checked in yet. I was continually told that no they had not yet arrived and would I perhaps like to leave a message for them. Since I did not want to spend the day sitting in my hotel room watching news reports about Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign for governor, I told her that I would just keep checking.

At about 7:00 that evening, all my pestering paid off, as I was informed that Robert Diugiud and his girlfriend had just checked in. I called their room and then we headed down to The Old Bailey for dinner. We were later joined by John Borah, with whom I was sharing my room, and Erik and Katherine Randolph, who arrived at about midnight. We stayed at the pub until about 1:00 in the morning, getting on good terms with the staff, thus ensuring that we would be treated well over the next few days.

On Friday morning, we visited the Victoria Bug Zoo, which I expected to be a stupid tourist trap. In a way, I guess it was...but it was also totally fascinating. There were all sorts of exotic bug species there, one of which I even got to hold. It was a ridiculously huge stick insect that was larger than my hand. I held it for about a minute or so (long enough for Erik to snap a few pictures of me holding it) until I was overcome by a sudden attack of the willies and demanded that the tour guide take it back.

Friday afternoon, we all had to go to the rehearsal. So, we boarded a chartered bus and headed out to Hatley Castle, where the wedding was to be held on Sunday. Those of you who are fans of the X-Men, might recognize Hatley Castle as Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Children. I was quite giddy when I learned that I was standing in the same entry hall wherein Wolverine had jumped off of the balcony and kicked the collective asses of all those soldiers who invaded the school. (Despite my best efforts, however, I was unable to determine the location of Cerebro. No doubt it was located underneath the house...probably on the other side of a red museum rope or some other impenetrable barrier.)

The rehearsal dinner, which consisted of an elaborate Indian cuisine buffet, was held back at The Empress Hotel at 7:00 that evening. After dinner, we headed over to The Old Bailey, where we once again stayed until closing.

Saturday morning was perhaps one of the highlights of my trip. That morning I went whale watching...mind you this wasn't on one of those big ass fishing boats that chases the whales around and bothers them. This was with a company called Prince of Whales (clever, eh?). They took us out in a little Kodiak raft and we basically waited for the whales to come to us. And come to us they did...there were about 80 killer whales or so who swam right by our boat. For some reason, when they came by us they all decided that it was time to start jumping out of the water. They were all jumping up, doing twists, flips, turns...all the cool stuff that you see Shamu do. Except there were 80 of them doing it out in the open ocean, about 10-15 feet away from me. Our guide said that he has never, in his entire life, seen anything like that. I think he's been giving those tours for quite a while. I have to say, it was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life. I was snapping pictures right and left, praying that my reaction time was quick enough to catch them while in the air. I was also hoping that one of them did not collide with our little boat, thus tossing us overboard where we would be quickly devoured in a killer whale feeding frenzy of sorts.

Sunday, of course, was the day of the big event. The wedding started at around 1:30 in the afternoon. I had a small role in the ceremony...reading a passage on love from C.S. Lewis's book Mere Christianity. Every time I read something out loud in public, I receive compliments along the lines of, "You did a great job reading up there." And I'm normally not quite sure how to react. I mean, all I did was read out loud in front of a group of people in a clearly projected voice without stumbling over my words.

Charis, the bride, was particularly grateful that I resisted the overwhelming temptation normally experienced by me in such a situation to start ad-libbing and throwing out the occasional bit of humor.

"So what is the deal with weddings? I mean, come on!"

Yeah...that didn't happen. Although it was tempting. I mean, there I was with a microphone and a captive audience. It would have been easy to do...but I had to remind myself that the day was not about me. Reluctantly, I handed the microphone off to the next reader and sat down.

After the wedding, we discovered that there is, in fact, very little to do in Victoria on a Sunday evening. Nearly all of the restaurants were closed (even The Old Bailey closes at midnight on Sunday) and we walked around for quite sometime before finally deciding to grab a late dinner at a place called The Sticky Wicket.

I went to bed at about midnight on Sunday night, only to be awoken by the annoying bedside alarm at 3:50 am. I got ready to leave, and then went and woke Erik up, because he had agreed to give me a ride to the airport.

I got back to Los Angeles with little trouble. Customs in Seattle was a royal pain, as it took nearly two hours to get to my gate. Because of the fact that there was only one immigration officer working, it took about fifty minutes to get through passport control. I then had to stand in another line so the customs official could ask me why I had gone to Canada. And then I had to wait an additional thirty minutes to get through security in order to get to gate D-12. Fortunately, I had a four hour layover so it did not affect me much. There were, to be certain, people who missed their connecting flights because of all the chaos.

Well, when I returned to Los Angeles, I was faced with the small dilemma of not having a ride home from the airport. Since it was about 1:00 in the afternoon on a weekday and, unlike me, most of my friends have jobs and could not pick me up, I decided to experiment with the Los Angeles metro system. It took nearly two hours for me to get from the airport to the Del Mar station in Pasadena, where I hailed a cab and headed home.

The metro was quite an experience...particularly the blue line portion, which cuts right through the heart of some of Los Angeles's poorest neighborhoods. Normally one doesn't see the poverty of Los Angeles up close if one doesn't live near it. Freeways provide a convenient way to pretend that it doesn't exist. We simply speed past it, often not realizing that, on the other side of the freeway's retaining wall, people are struggling to make ends meet and dealing with gang fights and shootings on an almost daily basis.

Well, I'm currently in the process of trying to arrange my student teaching assignment for the fall in South Pasadena. Since CSUN does not normally work with that district, I have to do much of the leg work myself. I finally managed to find the name of the person in charge of student teaching for the district and am going to write her an e-mail tomorrow. If it turns out that I cannot do it there, my professor told me that I will probably be placed in Glendale Unified...which is a pretty decent district from what I've heard. So, I'll keep you posted.