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Days Nine and Ten: Victoria, BC, Canada |
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Victoria is an interesting city; a blend of Canadian charm with strong British roots and eclectic like the rest of the Pacific Northwest.
Strolling down one of the downtown streets lined with stores stocked with British colonial wares (shortbreads, plaids, soccer jerseys, etc.) intermixed with the shops hawking t-shirts of every kisch variety possible I ran across a street artist working on a transposition from an art book of a painting by Johannes Vermeer. Done completely with pastels on a brick sidewalk it reminded me of a "street" mandala - the intricate geometrical sandworks produced by Buddist Monks in that it was created only to be destroyed once completed. |
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Karen had come in on the ferry from Seattle the previous afternoon - the same ferry that would be my last nautical experience on this trip.
We found time on a couple of occasions to relax in the sun sipping beer and getting caught up on what had transpired over the previous week. I think this is where I discovered my love of Konig Ludwig Wiess Bier. There is something about a good german wheat beer with a lemon wedge on a summer afternoon.
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The weather brought many people to the lawn in front of the Parliament building. Many simply laying out in the grass and watching passers-by. There was a vintage car show going on along the main street and a flea market at dockside. It also brought these two members of the Falun Gong religion that has been prosecuted so severely by the Chinese government. My personal thoughts are that none of the organized religions have it right, but they're all entitled the right to practice. I think the Eastern religions may be closer to a universal truth than the others though. I appreciated they were trying to get their point across silently without foisting their beliefs on you. This made a strong statement in my opinion and differs so much from the mainstream religions and their practitioners prominent in the U.S. |
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Just like the rest of the places we had a chance to visit, Victoria was in full bloom - even approaching the end of summer. When it is normally hot and dry back in Michigan, flowers were bursting with color and the grass and trees were draped in their brilliant hues of green. |
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I am not quite sure if this was the same mermaid that was greeting Victoria's tourists when my Grandpa and I were in Victoria as part of our Alaskan cruise back in 2003, but she may very well have been. After all, how many Accordion playing bright-haired mermaids can their be in Victoria? |
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Scott and I ended our journey together over dinner with Karen at a local Italian restaurant. Pleasant conversation and good food interlaced with a sense of melancholy was a fitting end to a trip that had carried us 161 nautical miles over eight days.
We parted ways shortly after dinner. Karen and I took off on the ferry, returning "home" to Seattle in about two hours. Amazing, really.
Sure, you can get from Point A to Point B in only two hours instead of eight days, but the experience is not even a fraction of what that longer trip was. The lyrics ring true, "the point of the journey is not to arrive."
Unfortunately arrival time had come. |
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Next: Day Eleven Seattle |
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Return to Main San Juan Page |
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Return to Main Ford Page |
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