Lilliput

Here I am in Victoria, Vancouver Island... popped over yesterday from Vancouver downtown via one local bus to Tsawwassen and a ferry to Shwarz Bay, then one more bus down to Victoria.

Total cost: 15 CAD (about 10 euros) ... nice!

This "city" is the complete polar opposite of Vancouver. It's tiny, provincial, clean, uncluttered and very very quiet. This, despite being the capital of British Columbia!

Plus I haven't met one loon while I've been here (there are a few homeless, but they tend to keep to themselves and even engage in painting rather than sleeping all day)

I put city in quotes because it really resembles a rather small provincial town in Ireland rather than a large city. In fact as I wandered around the place today I immediately thought it reminded me of Skerries in Co Dublin (of all places) with it's pleasant coastal situation.

It's renowned for being the most "English" of Canadian cities, and indeed it is quite conservative and polite, but not losing the friendly and approachable air of BC's smaller towns.

I am, of course, here to check out apartments to live in for the next 3 months until I head back east. Victoria is a pleasant city and has a lovely wharf setting full of small yachts and delicious fish and chip/sushi restaurants (I had some fantastic mackerel fish n chips yesterday, and the most delicious red salmon sushi I've ever had today).

Two things particularly attract me to Victoria: the weather and proximity of kite-surfing locations. It's known that it rains here far FAR less than Vancouver, and today has been a nice 26 C with a fresh sea breeze. Kite-surfing beaches are also only a 15 minute walk from downtown (albeit stony beaches, but it's still got super-clean Pacific ocean waters), and you can surf with the wales swimming nearby (this is a prime whale-watching location too).

I like.

I'm going to check out one apartment tonight. It's not cheap at 850/month but at least it's furnished and is actually located directly beside the harbour front, so I get the lovely sound of boat-bells clanging gently in the night to put me to sleep. A few people are going to be looking at it, so hopefully I can convince them I'm the tenant they want