Happy Birthday, Kristy!

It was my birthday on November 2 and for it, Loni surprised me with an overnight trip to Victoria, BC on the Clipper (a boat that travels between here and BC)! I was so surprised and excited because I had never been to Victoria before (only Vancouver) so it was a great gift. Plus Loni's parents had graciously agreed to watch Ellis for us, so we could go without her. So on Saturday morning we woke up at 6:00 am and drove to Loni's parents house, picked up Lanae and she dropped us off at Pier 69 for our 7:00 boarding, then drove off for her overnight with Ellis. We got our boarding passes and our seats and then settled in for the 2.5 hour boat ride. The trip over was pretty uneventful except I was trying to get Loni to take pictures with me on the boat and he accidentally switched the camera mode to camcorder mode and ended up taking a funny vidoe of the guy who was sitting next to us. He was pretty much giving us the evil eye. It makes me laugh, so I will try and post it if I can.

Anyway, once we arrived in Vancouver, we went through customs and started towards our hotel which ended up being only a block away. We stayed at the Grand Pacific (or Pacific Grand...I always get it messed up), the only 5star hotel in Victoria and I would definitely recommend it. Surprisingly, when we arrived at the hotel to check in, they actually had our room ready (it was only 10:30am) so we got to go drop our bags off at our room, which was a trendy King Suite. When Loni booked the trip, he got the romance package which included a rose petal turn down at night, with chocolates and a rose, plus breakfast in bed the next morning. It was all very exciting. So we checked in and then started our day of walking. Victoria is so small you can pretty much get anywhere by walking. We went to: the Parliment Building, The Fairmont Empress Hotel, Chinatown (though it should be called China Block), Christmas Village (not for the faint of heart..they had probably thousands and thousands of ornaments), Market Square (reminded me of a square from the midevil times), their mall there and up and down all the streets. We had lunch at this place called Earl's (reminded me of a Joey's here in Seattle). We spent about 4 hours exploring the city then headed back to the hotel (both of our feet were hurting). At the hotel we decided to go swimming to relax. The hotel we stayed at is one of the only hotels left that has a pool and hot tub in them, so we spent time doing that and Loni spent the majority of his time in the steam room and sauna hanging out with creepy old guys :). After that we decided to get ready for dinner and went to the Concierege to ask where we should go. The concierge suggested a place called Barkleys, which was where we decided to go. I should have known not to trust an old man with recommendations because when we got there it was almost completely dead...as were the people there. The patrons of that restaurant had to all be in their 60's! So the waiter sat us and as we were sitting there looking around, we decided we didn't want to eat there, so we bailed and caught a cab right outside. The cab drive was not useful at all with suggestions, so we finally had him drop us off at an Italian place someone told us about earlier called Pagliacci's. It was a very "hip" place where they make you wait in a line outside and let you in according to party size and place in line. The food wasn't that great..definitely not worth the hype, but oh well. So then we came back to the hotel (we were both EXHAUSTED) and walked into our room which had been turned down with rose petals, drinks, chocolates and music. It was very romantic! We ended the day by watching Superbad on the TV. A great first day!

For the second day, we relaxed for a while in the hotel room and slowly got moving. We finally made it out, checked out of our hotel and decided to go to the museum. The Royal BC Museum was filled with exhibits ranging from animals, to early BC inhabitors to Old mining towns. It was very interesting and cool to see, but nothing different from any other museum. I did take a pic of a Wooly Mammoth they had on display, so that was cool-that thing was HUGE! After the museum, we decided to walk around and find some lunch. Well, lunch got put on the back burner when we found a spa that had an open avialbilty for Loni to get a massage. So while he got a massage, I walked around, bought some chocolates and then headed back to wait for him. After his massage, we went to find lunch for real and then stopped by 7-11 to pick up some items for the boat ride back. All in all it was a GREAT birthday...probably the best one I have ever had. This trip to Victoria was great and plus my mom and dad gave me some cool gifts, so next year's will be hard to beat this one. The pictures are from the Victoria trip and the Video is is of the weird guy on the boat ride to Victoria. Enjoy!