Friday, April 13, 2007

Immigrant Bloggers in Victoria . . . .

The long-anticipated trip to Victoria to finally meet in reality vs. virtuality mseh of Two Moms to Canada and Mary and Diane of Our Journey towards Canadian Immigration took place yesterday.

For me, it started with a Translink bus ride (18 minutes) from our strata in The West End to Pacific Central Station



where I got on a Pacific Coach Lines motorcoach for the combination bus and ferry ride to Victoria. (Please no comments about a "fairy on a ferry", please!)



The travel time was 4 hours which included a little over 2 hours of water travel through the Gulf Islands in the Strait of Georgia.


Now that I've completed this mode of travel to Victoria from Vancouver, it is my preferred choice: You don't have to bother with a car and the expense involved. The schedule and times were perfect and on schedule. You get to sit back in comfortable accommodations and enjoy the scenery while someone else worries about the traffic and avoiding other boats. All for $70 CA roundtrip. What's not to like???

mseh met me at the bus station in Victoria and she and I proceeded to "Nervous Nellie's " (Again, the obvious comments are not necessary!) restaurant to participate in her book project about US to Canada immigrants.

After that, we went to the Tourist Info Centre to meet Mary and Diane. We then progressed to a pub in the area and began to swap stories, info, horror stories, etc. Although only having met for a short time, it seemed like we had known each other for much longer.



All in all, it was a great day and the weather pretty much cooperated, with only minimal sprinkle-spurts. Now that we have all met face-to-face rather than keyboard-to-monitor, I think we will remain close for a long time.

A couple of regrets: One is that the rest of our blogger family couldn't have joined us . . . . Perhaps a national re-union is in order once we're all "north of the 49th", eh? An additional regret is that another immigrant couple, W & M, couldn't join us . . . Maybe next time.

As the day drew to a close, this shot summarized it quite well . . . .


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi! Thanks for posting the link. Don't know that I'll thank you for posting the pic! -) Where's the one of you?!? We should have taken one of the two of us and our hair!

West End Bob said...

The one of me was not of publishable quality - No surprise there, eh? As for the hair . . . Next time we're together we'll do it, OK?

Canada Calling said...

Finally back from Seattle. Good to be back in Canada. Loved the blog entry. We are sure that we will all be friends in real time, as well. The wine was great!!!

West End Bob said...

You're too kind on the wine review . . . It works for us, and you can't beat the price. (In Canada, anyway!)

Hope you two can join us Sunday at Olympia Pizza on Denman . . .