I went to Victoria in July 2001 with my friend Dennis, whom I had actually just met a couple of days earlier in Vancouver. We hit it off unusually well, even despite the fact he was 14 years older than me. He was going to a town called Duncan on Vancouver Island for his high school reunion and didn’t have anyone to go with so he asked me if I wanted to tag along. Duncan wasn’t too far from Victoria, so I could explore Victoria while he went to his reunion…
Here are just some random memories and ramblings on my first night in Victoria:
The first thing I remember doing in Victoria is going to Eaton’s searching for clothes that could make Dennis look young at his reunion. A woman laughed when he came out of the dressing room wearing a bright orange shirt with navy blue cargo pants as he obviously looked like someone pretending to be younger than he was; he kept the pants but ended up getting a more conservative albeit colorful and bright blue shirt (he wore the shirt the first day he came to see me in California a couple of months later)... We went into a Bank of Montreal branch where Dennis had once worked at so he could make a withdrawal. He really got a kick out of showing me part of his past since he loved to talk about himself. We also went to a London’s drugstore to get shampoo and dental floss…
We found accomodations at the St. James Bay Inn, not far from the legislative building (Victoria is the capital of British Columbia). Dennis, having spent several years as a customer service manager at a bank, had an usual ability to deal with people in that fake sort of way customer service managers have of being sincere without really meaning it, so he was able to negotiate a good price (about $20 lower than listed) with the outgoing young hotel manager. The room we got was actually two connecting rooms, each with a separate bed and TV…
In the brief time we had before he had to board his bus to Duncan, Dennis gave me a whirlwind tour of the legislative building that rivaled that of an annoyed young female Asian tour guide who told him to be quiet since he was drowning out her presentation. At the time there was a drought on Vancouver Island, so the lawn in front of the building was yellowish. Dennis also showed me the main touristy streets near the harbor so that I would know my way around and get an idea of where I wanted to go.
After Dennis boarded his bus, I went out to explore the streets. It started raining and I had no umbrella since I absent-mindedly left mine behind on the ferry on the way over, so I had to buy a new one; I also bought postcards and a souvenir shot glass for my sister… I was hungry but couldn’t decide where to eat; I just went to a sandwich place to get something to bring back to the hotel room since I was tired and didn’t want to be out in the rain; I was still very sore and exhausted from all the walking I had done the days before in Vancouver and Edmonton during the first leg of my Canadian vacation…
Back at the hotel room, I took off all my wet clothes and got into bed and watched lots of TV, mostly Canadian programming I couldn’t see in the States or cable shows like “Sex and the City” that I couldn’t see at home since I didn’t have cable, before drifting off to sleep. I woke up around midnight upon hearing pounding on the door; I had to put on my pants, which were still wet from the rain and pulled a miscellaneous t-shirt out of my bag, as I climbed out of bed saying “Hold on, I’ll be right there!” I had put on the dead bolt locks on both doors as Dennis had told me to do when I was alone. When I opened the door, the night manager was with Dennis, and Dennis asked “What were you doing?” with big eyes and curiosity more than anything else. He had been knocking for several minutes, and I wouldn’t answer. I told him I was sleeping and that I was a very deep sleeper, which I am.
Dennis told me his friend Bert, who drove him back and who also attended the reunion, wanted to meet me. I wondered to myself why. Bert wore khaki shorts, which I thought was strange attire for a reunion and for the cool, rainy weather. The three of us ended up sitting/lying on one of the beds with me in the middle. I still had a sleep line across my forehead which I found embarrassing, and one of the guys said that it looked like I needed more sleep. Bert touched my hair when Dennis told him that I reminded him of their old friend Kevin, who had hair similar to mine. Needless to say, I found that weird. Bert lived on Vancouver Island and worked doing something for the government; he seemed older than Dennis although he was the same age. I talked about being from LA and found that he was unusually knowledgeable about southern California. Bert also commented on the Edmonton t-shirt I was wearing and said he thought Calgary seemed nicer (although he had never been to either city) and that perhaps he would like to go to Alberta sometime. When Bert decided to leave, Dennis and I walked him out to his car, and it was only lightly drizzling then.
On our way back to our room, we made small talk with the night manager at the front desk, an old man who had once been a science teacher but took the job at the hotel upon retirement about a year and a half earlier to be with his wife who had preceded him in retirement with a part-time job in Victoria…
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