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After a shocking night's sleep (about 3 hours) I got a 5.30am taxi to the airport. It cost me $40 but the alternative was the bus and I would have had to stand by the bus stop up the street at 4.50am in the dark with all my bags. No thanks.
Grabbed a really quick breakfast at the airport and was on the plane at 7. The flight went to Toronto and only took about an hour, but I then had to dash to another gate to catch the next plane to Victoria. It was already boarding as we landed so I was the last one on - phew! This flight was just under 5 hours and I mostly closed my eyes and listened to music on my iPad. Didn't actually sleep but just relaxing with the music helped.
Flying over the Rockies was pretty cool - you truly see how massive they are from the air.
A $60 taxi ride from the airport to my hotel but the driver was really chatty and nice - he told me all sorts of interesting and helpful facts.
The hotel is great - the first one I booked months ago was sold and turned into condos, so they called me and booked me in here instead for the same price. It's called the Executive House Hotel and is really well located which was important since I only have a short time here. I'm on the 16th floor and the room is lovely.
The tiredness was starting to set in (add to the lack of sleep the fact that Victoria is in a different time-zone so I had to turn my clock back about 3 hours) - so it was still not yet 11am. However I decided to go walkabout around the city and make the most of my time here. The Harbour is quite amazing and the Fairmont Empress Hotel looked stunning with the climbing ivy (?). The woman in the hotel had recommended a place down on the Harbour as having
really fresh seafood and I was famished so I went looking. Turned out to be little more than a shack but the menu was great and there were a lot of people so I figured it must be good. I ordered grilled salmon and salad (see photo). It was really good and nice sitting looking at the Harbour. It wasn't cold at all - I even had to take my jacket off.
After walking for a couple of hours I needed to get off my feet for 1/2 hour but after that I was good to go and went walking again. I wandered through shops and up and down streets and soon it was after 6 and I decided to have a light dinner. I chose a seafood restaurant called Pescatores. They didn't seem to like the fact I was in casual clothes (by the way they looked me up and down!) but gave me a seat right next to their impressive aquarium. It was a really lovely place and I had some amazing calamari - I only had an entree but it was surprisingly big.
A bit more walking to see the Harbour in lights and back to the hotel. Looking forward to some sleep tonight!
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