We spent our first day exploring Victoria. It’s hard to fit six people into a selfie!
Julian has grown a lot this year, but he isn’t taller than his aunt (yet).
The harbor in downtown Victoria is beautiful and clean.
Everywhere we saw colorful hanging flower baskets.
Emilio is 11 and he is growing fast too.
But he still likes to put bunny ears on his Dad in photos.
Julian and Emilio raced across the lawn in front of the British Columbia (BC) Legislature building.
In downtown Victoria we noticed a few totem poles.
We visited the Royal BC Museum and learned about the First Nations people from this area. (We also started noticing differences between Canadian words and English words - check out our footnotes at the end for explanations of terms in italics.)
In the museum was a room filled with totem poles.
The totem behind Kristina was an entrance to a house.
All six of us like to ride bikes, so we rented bikes for a day of exploring. Here Julian and Emilio are riding on the separated bike lane.
We were really impressed with the cycling infrastructure, and we felt safe as we rode.
Pete is near downtown Victoria next to a sign that counts the number of riders that use this bike path each day, which was over 1,500 when we passed by at 3 pm.
We rode past Recyclistas, a bike co-op and repair shop.
They had an awesome tandem painted on their sign.
We rode first on the Galloping Goose bike path, then on the Lochside bike path. Here we’re on a long, trestle bridge was over Blenkinsop Lake. Cynthia especially loved exploring Victoria by bike.
It was a beautiful spot. If you look closely, you can see lots of sleeping ducks in the lake.
Pete was able to photograph this dragonfly on the railing.
After our ride we enjoyed some ice cream.
We rode twice more, enjoying the continuously-changing spectacular views along the coast.
It was great to see many other cyclists riding too.
One of our favorite places to ride was Patricia Bay. Kristina’s Mom’s name is Patricia and July 10th is her birthday, so we’re sending birthday wishes and love to her!
We kept seeing signs for different First Nations groups.
In BC, Canada there are close to 200 different First Nations groups.
We saw lots of Canadian flags, and quite a few stuffed black bears too.
We especially liked this creative scarecrow.
We were surprised to learn that Canada’s iconic maple leaf flag was only adopted in 1965.
July 1st was Canada’s 150th anniversary as a nation. Here’s the official emblem of the sesquicentennial, a stylized maple leaf with 13 diamonds representing Canada's provinces and territories.
Some sesquicentennial signs included the Mounties dressed in their Red Serge.
Julian is next to a Mountie bear dressed in Red Serge.
We also saw lots of orca statues, like these topiary orcas.
Cynthia and we went to Buchart Gardens.
We noticed there was even an orca to ride on the Buchart Gardens carousel.
Here’s Cynthia on Annabelle, a more traditional carousel animal.
We saw the sunken garden that had been created in a depleted limestone quarry.
At the back of the sunken garden was another quarry that had been turned into a lake. Kristina was fascinated by the sunken garden, and how visionary it was for the Bucharts to restore the quarries into such a beautiful place.
Buchart Gardens is right on the water, and they have a dock with boats in this sheltered cove.
We took a boat ride on one of their five electric boats, and learned about their commitment to green practices.
The boat was silent as we motored around. Buchart Gardens offers free pumping services for boat waste to everyone anchored here.
This photo shows an old pier that has been turned into swallows’ housing with bird houses on top of the posts. To the right you can see the one remaining smokestack from the lime kilns. The Bucharts donated this land for a provincial park.
After the boat tour we made our way to the rose garden.
We saw hundreds of types of roses, blooming in all colors and sizes.
Rose bushes had been trained to grow over arbors.
We liked the sweet peas growing up a bamboo teepee.
Nearby we saw incredible begonias in the classic Victoria style hanging baskets.
Buchart Gardens employs 600 people, with 80 gardeners to keep the gardens looking perfect. Next to the worker is a trash can that has flowers growing out of the top.
Here’s Cynthia on Annabelle, a more traditional carousel animal.
We saw the sunken garden that had been created in a depleted limestone quarry.
At the back of the sunken garden was another quarry that had been turned into a lake. Kristina was fascinated by the sunken garden, and how visionary it was for the Bucharts to restore the quarries into such a beautiful place.
Buchart Gardens is right on the water, and they have a dock with boats in this sheltered cove.
We took a boat ride on one of their five electric boats, and learned about their commitment to green practices.
The boat was silent as we motored around. Buchart Gardens offers free pumping services for boat waste to everyone anchored here.
This photo shows an old pier that has been turned into swallows’ housing with bird houses on top of the posts. To the right you can see the one remaining smokestack from the lime kilns. The Bucharts donated this land for a provincial park.
After the boat tour we made our way to the rose garden.
We saw hundreds of types of roses, blooming in all colors and sizes.
Rose bushes had been trained to grow over arbors.
We liked the sweet peas growing up a bamboo teepee.
Nearby we saw incredible begonias in the classic Victoria style hanging baskets.
Buchart Gardens employs 600 people, with 80 gardeners to keep the gardens looking perfect. Next to the worker is a trash can that has flowers growing out of the top.
We were impressed that they make all their own soil, a process that takes several years. They also grow all their flower plants in 16 greenhouses.
We liked all the details, including these dragonflies whose bodies were made of wire and moss.
Kristina and Cynthia were both born in the Year of the Dragon. The dragon fountain was a gift from sister city Suzhou, China.
We enjoyed the Japanese garden, too.
There were totems in the gardens, a reminder about the First Nations people and their importance to Canada.
Nearby there was this sign, which shows that Saanich was named by the Saanich First Nations people who were the first inhabitants. The original spelling of Saanich is written as W̱SÁNEĆ and means "emerging people."
While the three of us enjoyed the gardens, Humberto spent time with Julian and Emilio, walking on the shore near our Airbnb. This view of the sea was only about ten minutes walk from the house.
When not out exploring the Saanich Peninsula they all like to read.
Emilio loves to play video games. Here he's playing "tacos are wild", a simulation of a slot machine. He's allowed one hour a day to play video games.
All six of us like to play ping pong. The picnic table in the front yard of the Airbnb became our ping pong table, thanks to the portable ping pong net that Humberto had given us several years ago.
The table was tiny, so we included the benches as part of the surface area that could be played off.
Emilio loves to lounge around the house in his housecoat, but this doesn't hinder his ping pong skills and these days he regularly beats the adults and his brother.
We spent our evenings playing games like Apples to Apples, Rummy Cub and Scrabble. Pete tried unsuccessfully to convince us that "wobshod" means "poorly fitting shoes" in Canadian English.
We cooked most of our meals at the Airbnb. Humberto made poached eggs served over a salad of roasted corn and bacon one day. Yum.
For Julian's birthday he picked the main dish: pulled pork sandwiches made by Uncle Pete.
And for his birthday 'cake' he chose sweet potato pie made by his Aunt Kristina. Fourteen candles looked like a small bonfire on the pie.
But in one breath, Julian blew them all out. He's on the swim team, so he's in good cardiovascular shape.
Julian's favorite activity on the trip was whale watching. He thought the boat was awesome.
Julian used part of his birthday money to buy his first pair of Ray Ban sunglasses.
We told him he looked very GQ in them, but the reference didn't mean anything to him. He's getting to be such a handsome young man!
The rest of us found the boat ride to be windy and a bit chilly, so we were happy that the boat had extra toques for us to wear.
Emilio donned a toque and kept warm with a hug from his Mom.
The boat took us a long ways north in search of orcas. We all liked seeing the beautiful scenery from the boat.
We passed the ferry landing where we had crossed over to Vancouver Island.
We were thrilled to watch a pod of four orcas! A pod is a matriarchal family unit that hunts together.
Here all four dorsal fins are visible. The orcas were hunting seals, so they were quietly cruising along the shoreline.
The marine biologist on board showed us photos of these orcas. Each orca has a unique saddle patch. The mother orca's saddle patch is shown in the two photos at top, and her three offsprings' are below.
There was a bald eagle on top of this light.
As we returned to Victoria, we saw the charming harbor boat taxis and the pretty harbor.
A few nights later we went to Victoria harbor for a full moon paddle.
We amused ourselves taking selfies while we waited for the moon to come up.
Humberto and Pete looked quite skookum in their kayaking outfits.
Julian was able to photo bomb the shot of Kristina and Cynthia in their life jackets and spray skirts.
Then at about 9:30 pm, we got our first glimpse of the huge, glowing moon. (Hint: look to the left of the orange house boat.)
We hopped into our kayaks and started paddling around the harbor.
Emilio was in the front of Pete's double kayak. Pete loves to kayak, and he thought kayaking by moonlight was the best activity of our trip.
Here you can see Julian and Kristina paddling together in a double kayak.
It was getting pretty dark as we paddled toward the downtown.
The BC Legislature building was outlined in lights, and the Steamship Terminal was lit with rainbow colors for LGBTQ Pride. Pretty wonderful week, eh?!
Next Cynthia, Humberto, Julian and Emilio fly back to Oakland, and we head to Nanaimo to start a cycling trip around Vancouver Island.
Footnotes
First Nations people are called Native Americans in the US.
The Mounties are Canada’s national police force whose full name is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). The RCMP are famous for their distinctive dress uniform popularly known as the Red Serge, with a collared scarlet tunic.
A toque is a knit hat. Toque is pronounced with a 'double o' sound, like moose. Canadians love this sound, and they even change other words to use it, such as about which is pronounced aboot.
A housecoat is a bathrobe.
Skookum conveys connotations of reliability and strength.
Eh is used to indicate a question that is expected to be answered affirmatively. We think you're getting the hang of Canadian English, eh?
