Great trip!
I am home from my brief vacation to the Island. It was a great success!
I had planned to take the 11:00 ferry but after a very sleepless night, I didn't wake up as early as I had hoped, so I finally got my stuff together and onto the 1:00 ferry. In front of me on the ferry was the strangest thing I have ever seen...A car with what I thought was duct tape, but figured out later was some kind of protective film over the hood, trunk and roof of the car...it was so weird. But that wasn't all...on the back bumper there were three little strips of this protective film each topped with three big pieces of styrofoam...And finally, everything inside the car was covered in plastic...EVERYTHING, seats, steering wheel, doors...it was so very very weird.
But, I digress. I got off the ferry and quickly and easily navigated myself to my friend's house. It was very nice to see her after seeing her once, about 3-4 years ago, in 8 years. We visited for a little while and then headed downtown to check out the many bookstores. Later, we had dinner at this quaint little restaurant and then headed back to her house. And then, I was ecstatic to find another word game lover, and we played Boggle until the wee hours of the morning! I was in heaven. :)
On Friday, I slept in quite late after staying up late with no nap the day before! After breakfast, we headed into the city to visit my favourite places: the university bookstore, the breakwater and the inner harbour. I found about 5 or 6 books that I thought would be great for my classroom, for silent reading, including one I think I will read first, hehe. Next, we took the long scenic route along beach drive to the breakwater. I didn't see any parking spots and was starting to get hungry so we just kept driving and found a place to park near the harbour. Soon after we got out of the car, I realized I really needed to eat, so we passed right by the harbour and walked to the mall to get some lunch. I checked my blood and it was really low...it was 70, I can't believe how low it was only about 2 and a half hours after breakfast! After lunch, we enjoyed a nice stroll through the harbour, but had wasted most of our time on the parking meter with lunch, so we soon headed back. Besides, we had to start preparing for our dinner guests.
We drove back out to my friend's city, stopping at a farm to pick up some fresh corn and then at a grocery store for other food items. I made my infamous broccoli salad (you may remember my obsession last summer!...somewhere in the archives is the recipe) and then we played a little Boggle until our guests arrived.
Our guests were friends from our university days. We hadn't seen them in over 8 years and I really didn't know what to expect. Two were actually friends of mine from high school who eventually had moved out to Victoria at some point during my university years, one a friend of one of the kids I babysat for years, and the other a friend I had made in my first year of university. They arrived and we visited, everyone having many drinks but me...LOL, and we ate some delicious homemade hamburgers, chicken breast, salad, corn and broccoli salad. We visited some more, they all drank some more, and then absolutely out of the blue unexpectedly, two of them walked outside. They never said thank you for dinner, they never said good bye, they just left. I was (and continue to be) quite shocked at the rudeness of it all. As the other two were leaving, they invited us back to their place for more drinks, and we were decided to head back into the city to join them. We went back and the boys absolutely ignored us, but we enjoyed a nice visit and lots of booze (water for me, of course) with A. The boys got ready to head out to the bar, and we decided it was time to head back home. I had had another long day/late night with no nap. When we got in, we both crashed.
On Saturday, we spent the morning visiting, and playing a couple more hours of Boggle, and then it was time to head home. On the way home, I just reveled in how much I love the ferry ride. I sat out on the deck, with the wind in my hair, watching the ocean and the islands as we went by...It's funny, I accepted my job here because I wanted to stay near the ocean, but I never see it out here...only when I decided to head out to Victoria.
In all, it was a wonderful trip and I hope to do it again before the baby comes as my friend is not too fond of kids.;) LOL
I had planned to take the 11:00 ferry but after a very sleepless night, I didn't wake up as early as I had hoped, so I finally got my stuff together and onto the 1:00 ferry. In front of me on the ferry was the strangest thing I have ever seen...A car with what I thought was duct tape, but figured out later was some kind of protective film over the hood, trunk and roof of the car...it was so weird. But that wasn't all...on the back bumper there were three little strips of this protective film each topped with three big pieces of styrofoam...And finally, everything inside the car was covered in plastic...EVERYTHING, seats, steering wheel, doors...it was so very very weird.
But, I digress. I got off the ferry and quickly and easily navigated myself to my friend's house. It was very nice to see her after seeing her once, about 3-4 years ago, in 8 years. We visited for a little while and then headed downtown to check out the many bookstores. Later, we had dinner at this quaint little restaurant and then headed back to her house. And then, I was ecstatic to find another word game lover, and we played Boggle until the wee hours of the morning! I was in heaven. :)
On Friday, I slept in quite late after staying up late with no nap the day before! After breakfast, we headed into the city to visit my favourite places: the university bookstore, the breakwater and the inner harbour. I found about 5 or 6 books that I thought would be great for my classroom, for silent reading, including one I think I will read first, hehe. Next, we took the long scenic route along beach drive to the breakwater. I didn't see any parking spots and was starting to get hungry so we just kept driving and found a place to park near the harbour. Soon after we got out of the car, I realized I really needed to eat, so we passed right by the harbour and walked to the mall to get some lunch. I checked my blood and it was really low...it was 70, I can't believe how low it was only about 2 and a half hours after breakfast! After lunch, we enjoyed a nice stroll through the harbour, but had wasted most of our time on the parking meter with lunch, so we soon headed back. Besides, we had to start preparing for our dinner guests.
We drove back out to my friend's city, stopping at a farm to pick up some fresh corn and then at a grocery store for other food items. I made my infamous broccoli salad (you may remember my obsession last summer!...somewhere in the archives is the recipe) and then we played a little Boggle until our guests arrived.
Our guests were friends from our university days. We hadn't seen them in over 8 years and I really didn't know what to expect. Two were actually friends of mine from high school who eventually had moved out to Victoria at some point during my university years, one a friend of one of the kids I babysat for years, and the other a friend I had made in my first year of university. They arrived and we visited, everyone having many drinks but me...LOL, and we ate some delicious homemade hamburgers, chicken breast, salad, corn and broccoli salad. We visited some more, they all drank some more, and then absolutely out of the blue unexpectedly, two of them walked outside. They never said thank you for dinner, they never said good bye, they just left. I was (and continue to be) quite shocked at the rudeness of it all. As the other two were leaving, they invited us back to their place for more drinks, and we were decided to head back into the city to join them. We went back and the boys absolutely ignored us, but we enjoyed a nice visit and lots of booze (water for me, of course) with A. The boys got ready to head out to the bar, and we decided it was time to head back home. I had had another long day/late night with no nap. When we got in, we both crashed.
On Saturday, we spent the morning visiting, and playing a couple more hours of Boggle, and then it was time to head home. On the way home, I just reveled in how much I love the ferry ride. I sat out on the deck, with the wind in my hair, watching the ocean and the islands as we went by...It's funny, I accepted my job here because I wanted to stay near the ocean, but I never see it out here...only when I decided to head out to Victoria.
In all, it was a wonderful trip and I hope to do it again before the baby comes as my friend is not too fond of kids.;) LOL
posted by Katrina | 8/14/2005 07:17:00 PM
6 Comments:
I'm glad you had a good time up here. We'll definitely have to do it again - within the next 7 months! And I'm still laughing about the post-dinner departure....
I'm curious. Did you tell your friends about your pregnancy?
Also, I'm curious about your "silent reading." Is this something you do in your classes?
Do you find you have many behaviour problems in your Spanish classes? Here in Ontario, teaching FSL is extremely difficult because of the poor attitudes of parents and students towards French and because it is mandatory until grade 9.
Rae
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Thanks for having me, K! :)
Rae - the friend I was visiting knew about my pregnancy, but I didn't tell the others. My excuse for not drinking was also true, I just said that I was diabetic and shouldn't drink. At the end of the night, I would have been OK with telling A, the girl, but it didn't come up, obviously. LOL.
Silent reading, actually called SSR = sustained silent reading, is a program the entire school does. For 22 minutes every day, the whole school, administration and all, is expected to just read. I love it, I can't believe they pay me to read! :)
It's funny you ask about behaviour problems. I think I have mentioned before how I seem to dream incessantly these days, and last night/this morning all of my dreams were about horrible behaviour problems in my classes! For the most part, I don't have a lot of trouble since it's an elective and mostly just students planning on attending university take a foreign language. Also, behaviour problems often (not always) accompany poor academic performance and if a student fails first semester, they are highly encouraged to drop second semester since they won't get to move on to the next level anyway until they pass the full year. I taught FSL in BC for 6 months before moving here...I had MUCH worse behaviour problems there than I do here.
Katrina - Welcome back! I'm glad you had a great time. Hopefully, you will have a few days to recover and sleep and by lazy before school starts. Also, inquirening minds want to know if you have made any progress with the classroom situation and the reluctant teacher?
Deb
Glad you had a great trip Katrina. Hard to believe summer is almost over - school starts here this Thursday. Hope you are able to get into your classroom and start moving in soon. ~CarolynG
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