A lesson in Canadian dining...

Some background…

A few weeks ago I got a Christmas card from my friend John in California. It was a funny card and it was good to hear from him. On the 29^th of December, I was sitting at the computer and my wife handed the card and Said “he left his email address, you should write to him”

While I was out snowshoeing with Charles on the 30^th, I got a call from John to say that we was in Seattle with some buddies and wanted to meet up while he was here. I called him after the hike was done and he said that they were in town until the 2^nd and wanted to me to go to Victoria with them. We made plans to meet near my house at 6am so that we could drive to Port Angles to catch the 8:20am ferry.

The Trip…

I got up at 5am to fuel the car and make sure I got there on time. John, Luke and Aaron didn’t get there until 6:30am. I knew we wouldn’t make the morning ferry, but tried anyways. We pulled in to Port Angeles at 8:30am, only ten minutes late, but too late. We parked near the terminal and passed out in the car for two hours. We were all hungry when we woke up at around 10, so we had a good breakfast at the dockside café.

After breakfast we headed up to Hurricane ridge to check out the view and kill some time. I had never been there in the winter time, so I really enjoyed the breathtaking scenery. The visitor’s center was crowded, and there were lots of people there with all kinds of snow toys. I wished I had my snowshoes and more time. We didn’t have much time. After snapping some pictures and using the bathroom it was time to head back down to catch our ferry. We made it back to Port Angeles just in time.

After disembarking from the ferry in Victoria, we checked into the Fairmont Empress, and then decided to find some food. I tried to lead us to the Elephant and Castle Pub, but I couldn’t remember where it was. After 15 minutes of wandering around downtown Victoria, I finally conceded I didn’t know where it was. It wasn’t even on the map of the area. A few minutes later we walked by where it should have been and found out it had closed. I wasn’t crazy.

New Year’s Eve…

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After half an hour of searching, we finally found a pub that was open and ate at Darcy’s. I had a bbq lamb burger. It was very good, but I thought It was overpriced. Then I remembered one of the two best things to get in Canada is Gelato. It only took us a few minutes to find a store selling 61 flavors of Gelato, and it took me ten minutes to decide which flavors to get. I finally decided on Grand Marnier and Mocha Kahlua. We ate it on the way back to the Hotel.

The Fairmont Empress is one of the finest hotels in Victoria and without a doubt the most historic and full of character. It was built 100 years ago, in the style of Victorian England, but it has since added some Canadian and Pacific Northwest flavor. The Empress and the Parliament building are the focal point of the inner harbor, and probably the most photographed buildings in British Columbia. Our room was comfortable, and they have a very nice health club, pool and spa at the first floor. My only complaint about the health club is that Canadians keep their spa at a few degrees below boiling in order to keep people out so they don’t have to clean them.

After a very warm and somewhat relaxing time in the spa, we left the hotel again in search of a pub to wait for midnight. As with dinner we had to try three pubs before we found one that had room to let us in. We spent the next several hours in the Sticky Wicket and spent midnight at Sauce. After midnight we got pizza and then went to bed.

We woke up at 8am on New Year’s Day to try catch the 10:30am ferry, but first we had to find breakfast. Since the Gelato store was closed, we were forced to look elsewhere. After walking around downtown for 20 minutes we decided to go back to the hotel for breakfast. It turned out there were have a buffet, which sounded good to us. It was the best breakfast buffet I have ever had, and was all English style. I had English breakfast tea, smoked salmon, sausage, crab cakes Benedict, and some very good pastries. At the end of our meal we found out why we enjoyed it so much. It was 30 dollars per person. None of us had any idea they would charge that much, and would not have gone if we had known.

We got to the ferry terminal at the end of the boarding line, only to be denied by U.S. Customs. Luke, one of the members of our party was an English citizen and didn’t have one of the forms needed for his student visa. So while he got that faxed we got more Gelato. The rest of the trip was uneventful and we made it back on the afternoon ferry.