I had just driven us from our house, a terrifying journey of espionage, and wicked car chases. A mother whose face resembled that of someone who had died recently, but has most definitely perished someplace cold (which is to say the very least, white with fear), clenched her eyes against the hail of bullets pounding through the windshield. She gripped the armrest hard enough for Lou Ferrigno to think twice about a handshake.
The father. The GOD-Father. Calmly he reached for his German made Scheisse, a ruthless killing machine that happened to smell like old sewage.
"Good thing it's only a rental" he grumbled to the boy with feverish looking eyes attempting to drive the getaway car. The god-father proceeded to blast a gaping hole through the glass in the back, narrowly missing a truck full of puppies.
With the engine on fire and in critical condition the car skidded into the parking lot of Munson Mountian. Suddenly doing a barrel roll. We clambered from the wreckage just in time, as the car exploded in a fiery ball of next weeks groceries and tigers.
No one looked back or covered their ears, instead we simultaneously put on sunglasses in slow motion.
What met us afterwards was not a gaggle of furious Saukerl's( I mean police officers)
but a glorious sunset at Penhenge, only a few days after the spring equinox.
Let's play count the deer!
The next day I had rugby at 7 in the morning. It was also the day we would leave for Victoria.
As you can imagine after a shower to cleanse myself of the outdoor sports stank, the house was a flurry of packing, for we were to leave an pick up daddy from work at noon.
Our fine dining dinner.
A most intense cloud over Keromeos.
The next important thing (because I can't sit here all night) was the ferry. Not to exclude the rest of the drive, but I slept for a good portion of that and therefore obviously don't remember.
Sliding over the pavement in the van we pulled into the ferry terminal at a quarter to six. Over an hour early for our 7'o'clock crossing on one of our favourite Spirit ferries. The man at the terminal (I will call him Labjeet) said we could get on the 6 O'clock ferry, which was a splendid new double ended job called....
On the way through, past Salt Spring, a beautiful sunset showed it's coppery golden head around the side of the island. A flock of unruly gulls circled above, squawking down at the absurdly colored apes. "why aren't you grey? Why can't you fly?" they seemed to ask, mocking us be keeping speed with the ship.
Another thing was that the new ferries do not appear to own a soft-icecream machine. On the flip-side there is a mass amount of tables to play a good game of Dutch-Blitz on.
We rolled off the ferry into a massive stream of cars (not trucks) who all seemed to be going the same way. Judy met us with a large bag of garbage outside her quaint one bedroom apartment, the inside I must say is a chaos of boxes and "stuff".
And of course the next day is downtown day!
The first order of business was to shrug of the aura of damp sea air that kept whipping through town. After that it was the challenge of finding me some TOMS from last season, that actually fit. This is much harder than you can imagine, and after three stores (and a few Australian shopkeepers) there was no luck. By now we are famished and proceed to the most delicious restaurant in all of downtown Victoria (let alone the world)
And of course without question it is Pagliacci's! I had the cream based tortellini (sorry no picture!) and many, many slices of deliciously warm bread.
Sitting across from us, and slightly to the left, sat a young girl. She was probably no more than 7 years of age. Typically small children cannot finish there food, the same principle could be applied if I were to eat say....an elephant. After the girls half eaten pasta was cleared the pretty waitress brought out what I perceived to be as the largest piece of chocolate cake ever. It was probably around TEN INCHES TALL. And had layers of chocolate mouse the same thickness as the layers of cake. The little girl's jaw dropped in pure disbelief. "How can I Possibly EAT all that?!" she wondered, yet managed to achieve. Obviously I was quite envious.
But instead I got to eat THIS!
Which is a chocolate from Roger's, but even more specifically this!
The 125th anniversary chocolate. Awesome.
Soon we were on our way, trundling down towards the tall ship masts poking out above the wharf. What else but the Swift Eh?
Apparently, with our incrediblely good timing, we had just met the swift fairly soon after it had come in. Skipper climbed out to greet us as did Matt, and even Niki stuck her head out to shout a hello.
Y'know what Robyn? All of them said, after the first greetings "Your missing one. Where's Robyn?". We chatted for a while longer, Matt wants El Gringo Loco to visit the Swift this summer, and has some new penny whistles. Skipper asked about the mandolin. All seemed right dandy. Even the sun came out.
The next thing to do was to actually find my shoes. The final store was a Kayaking shop next to Capitol Iron. I took some pictures on the way back to the parkade.
An interesting art piece.
An interesting tree. Look at that woman's face!
Spring has sprung....at least in Victoria.
Eventually we make it to this kayaking store. They only have the green TOMS botas, but we ask for the black ones anyway. The guy says "I will go check the back". This usually means that there is nothing but they want to get your hopes up. Then destroy them.
The man came back "I have an 11.5 and a 13"
"In what?" I ask bewildered. Surly not last seasons boots?
"Black of course!"
Surly indeed. I pounced on the box like a Mexican on a burrito. Or like a feline that pounces. Stuffing the glorious shoes onto my feet. I don't care if they are a bit long I will take them! I then announced my thoughts verbally to a surprised mother.
TOOOOMMMSS!
It's true that you can always find more room to stuff some dessert down your neck, for we were truly Un-hungry, and we still went for the traditional beacon hill drive in Icecream.
After receiving our tall, tasty (yet very fattening) cones we walked up the hill to the summit. A strangled cry halted us in our tracks, preventing us from ascending the massive slope ahead. It was a (gaggle?) peacock, of the preening prancing male full of hormones kind of bird.
There was one bird whom I suspect to be an adolescent, who ran around like a demented thing, skwaking and making a general racket.
This view met us at the top.
A grey sky over Victoria (and washington). Had it been clear the view would be even more spectacular.
On the way down the hill there were these...
And these....
And waiting at the bottom was the most spectacular burlesque dance ever to be seen....by a peacock. That's right folks I received a striptease from a ground locked fowl.
The dancer waited until I was comfortably seated on a splintery log, then started with the bottom,
He then carefully turned, revealing his face, and a peek of the green feathers at the side. Just enough to keep us interested, yet not giving it all away. A crowd had started to gather, pointing at the private fan dance I was getting....From a peacock.
Finally after much teasing and waiting, the REVEAL!
After that we ended back at Judy's, where I proceeded to start this post. It has now been well into the third day of writing and it is finally done.
This concludes the longest blog post i have ever written!
Enjoy the pictures and have a good spring break!
-Brendan-
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