DV, Day 7

You thought I was done, didn't you. The Alaska part was done, but the trip wasn't! Now you get the rest!

We spent the morning at sea, which was lovely - I read more, attempted another crossword, and amused myself by wandering around to see who I could see. I found a few friends around noon, so we went to the kids circus show. That was mildly entertaining. Then we had lunch, which included the now-typical lengthy post-meal dessert just for fun.

At 2 pm, we docked in Victoria, BC, and set off the boat on my first Canadian adventure. Three of us jumped on a CVS shuttle set for downtown, and made our way to the Royal BC Museum. Oddly enough, my traveling companions managed to get a better deal on the entrance fee than I did (only by a few dollars), but whatever.  (Different agent. Apparently the other one knew about the super secret better-than-your-lousy-coupon deals.)

The exhibits were cool - we saw a bunch of stuff about dinosaurs, a neat photography exhibit about Queen Elizabeth, a land-and-animal-history-of-the-area exhibit, and a "First Peoples" exhibit, that traced the culture of the people living in the area from the earliest known peoples all the way up to about 1990.  It was neat to see the weaving, totem polls, and tools and learn about the culture of the ancient inhabitants of that land. It was also educational to learn about the gold rush, whaling, and other various and sundry things. They had a cool grandfather clock that played music - it looked like it was the original concept behind the record player (like the one I grew up with) - and I thought it would be cool to have a clock like that in my house.

The wierdest part?

Seeing my childhood preserved in a museum case. Mario. The Original Nintendo. Spice Girls dolls. Transformers. Old-style cordless telephones. Baseball cards - the kind that came with the gross stick of gum in the package. (I loved collecting those things, until I was about 10 or 11, when I realized if I sold them I could buy something I wanted more. Conveniently there was a store opening a few blocks from our house, and they bought my whole collection. Best decision I ever made about selling collectibles.)

Who knew my childhood was museum history?

After that, we wandered downtown Victoria.

The Empress Hotel - complete with Canadian flag

We stopped in only at important places like Roger's Chocolates and the candy stores.

This pic taken specifically for Author N, who
(along with my sis) collects Angry Birds plushies.

If I had felt like figuring out how to ship an Angry Birds candy apple to my sister and brother-in-law, they would have gotten more than just this awesome picture. But it did make me laugh!

The view of Victoria from the ship

When we got hungry, we went back to the ship. And ate.

We attempted to watch the sunset, but didn't really get to see anything spectacular, so we just sat around and talked outside on deck 7 instead. And watched the moon rise.

Later we tried to go stargazing (it was the first time we had seen night since we left!) but it was a total fail. There is too much light pollution on a cruise ship, even when it's the only thing around. Oh well.

We woke up the next morning in Seattle. I won't bore you with the details of my trip home. Only one thing is necessary to note: they have Chick-FilA in the MSP airport. That made me happy.

The end. For reals. Although I do want to go on another vacation (already).