Maritime Adventure - Fun in the "Chi"

I pick up Marie on the way to NB from the Halifax Airport and during our stay we went to see Erin in Miramichi. This is her with her cat "Pants".
We later went to the infamous "Opera House" where I assure you that no opera was heard. Erin then revealed to us that it was her birthday. We then promptly proceeded to order shots and a Fishbowl full of something they called grog (seen above).

This picture was Marie's idea. The reason for it will remain a mystery for all times, especialy to Marie. We finished of the night with a flurry of donairs and pizza slices. Fun had by all.

Maritime Adventure - Olivia's Birthday

These are picture I have been meaning to put up for quite a while now. This and the next couple of post happened back in June. Luckly, I was in the maritimes around Olivia's birthday for a course trough my work. Julia was unfortunately unable to come. You can see her above injoying her Winnie the Poo cake. Next is Olivia with her grand mother Joan (my aunt).

And finaly this is me and Taryn, Olivia's older sister and my goddaughter, reading about small furry animals baking pie.

The John C. Stennis

On Chris and Karen's last full day in Victoria we were going to finally show them around the city a bit. We'd planned for a nice long walk along Dallas Rd., right on the strait of Juan de Fuca, stopping at Fisherman's Wharf for some fish and chips, and ending up downtown for a couple of pints. Since we were going to be walking right by our friend Brian's place we decided to give him a call to see if he wanted to join us.

Now Brian is in the Navy, and though this was on the holiday Monday, he was on the base in Esquimalt when he answered his cell phone. Jeremi asked him if he wanted to go for a walk, and Brian asked us if we wanted to go on a tour of the visiting US aircraft carrier, the John C. Stennis. Knowing that this would entertain Chris to no end, we decided to go for it.

Because the ship rather large it was anchored a ways from shore, and the small, invitation-only tour groups had to take a small boat out from the naval base to dock at the aircraft carrier. So we headed out to Esquimalt to meet up with Brian. There was a bit of miscommunication, so we ended up going on a later tour, but it was worth the wait. Even the trip on the boat out to the ship was worth the trip, on a beautiful sunny day with a great view of the harbour. Here's a picture of Jeremi, Chris, and Karen on the small boat.

Since the boat left from the base, we also got a great view of all the other Canadian ships that were in port, including the one sailboat, the Oriole, on which Jeremi's brother Nick spent his summer, travelling the west coast of BC. Here's a picture of the Oriole:















We then made it to the actual aircraft carrier, where we had a tour that was about an hour or so long. It was a very highly structured tour, with only a bit of over-the-top propaganda at the beginning, when we visited this little room that was basically a shrine to John C. Stennis, some US senator who worked in military appropration. Basically, he got a lot of funding for the Navy, so they named an aircraft carrier after him, or something like that.

Unfortunately the aircraft component of the aircraft carrier wasn't on board, as this was really just a fun trip for the sailors. So instead we got to visit an almost empty flight deck, where you can see us here:


All in all, it was a very fun day, and very unexpected! We still made it to Fisherman's Wharf for some fish and chips, though we didn't get to spend as much time downtown as we might have. Still, it was too good a chance to pass up.

A trip to Port Renfrew (part II)

Our trip to Port Renfrew wasn't all playing games and drinking by the campsite (though there was an epic Euchre tournament where Karen and I crushed Chris and Jeremi). We did actually make it out to see some of the spectacular scenery along the coast. We took a nice day trip for a little hike to Botany Bay and Botanical Beach, which is reknowned for its tide pools filled with aquatic life. Here are a just a few pictures from this outing.

At the left you can see a picture of a Stellar's Jay, perched upon a piece of driftwood. After many attempts, Chris finally managed to capture a good picture of this cheeky bird with beautiful dark blue plumage. It's a bit bigger than a Blue Jay, and it's the provincial bird of British Columbia.

A trip to Port Renfrew (part I)

So it's been a long while since we've posted, so we've got some catching up to do. Back at the beginning of August Chris and Karen came to visit us for a few days. In order to get a real "West coast experience" we decided to go camping over the long weekend, somewhere near the ocean. Since Jeremi and I hadn't yet made it very far along the southern coast of the island, we decided to head towards Port Renfrew, to see what we would find.

Port Renfrew is at one end of both the West Coast Trail and the smaller Juan de Fuca Trail, and only really shows up on maps because there's nothing else around. If you start driving west from Victoria, it's where the road ends. I knew that it was small, but also knew that it increased in size a fair bit during the summer tourist season. We didn't know exactly where we were going to camp, but decided to just get there and see if we could find a spot at a campsite (most don't take reservations), or ask at the tourist bureau.

So we drove and drove, passing other places where we might have camped, until we made it to a tourism office with a mural that said Port Renfrew on it. There wasn't really much other indication that we were in a town. At this point it was around noon on the Friday of the August long weekend, at the very apex of the tourist season, and the tourism office was closed. Not just out for lunch, completely closed. Luckily there were a couple kids hanging around out front who were able to help us. I asked them if we were in Port Renfrew, to which they replied: "Yes. You're in Port Renfrew right now." Something tells me that we weren't the first visitors who weren't quite sure if that's all there was. They also helpfully directed us down a road where we'd be able to find some campsites.

We drove down this road a few kilometers, not quite sure where it would take us, until we came to a T-junction with the following sign:


We turned right, and eventually found a nice site on Fairy Lake. (Not at all like the one in Newmarket.) It was probably good that we weren't on the ocean too, as it was cold enough where we were.

Much fun was had at the campsite, with a good deal of beer to help it along. A couple of highlights are featured here: the contest to see how well we could drink beers using only BBQ utensils, and a complicated baseball-like game involving hitting small green berries with beer bottles.







The second picture doesn't actually illustrate the game itself very well, but you do get to see how entertaining Chris found it.

Camping at Miracle Beach

After the run and our celebratory beers on Canada Day, we drove up to Miracle Beach, a provincial park about three and a half hours north of Victoria, to meet up with my cousin Shane, his wife Dayna, and their kids, Midori and Toby, for some camping. Miracle Beach is a nice spot with a very gradually-sloping sandy beach, located on the east side of the island between Courtenay and Campbell River. Because the beach is so shallow, the water actually gets quite warm, and there are some very warm shallow tidal pools filled with little crabs and fun kelp and seaweed. On the whole, the water is quite clear too. The campsites themselves are only a short walk from the beach, and are nestled amongst tall trees, giving some much-needed shade and coolness after an afternoon at the beach. Here's a picture of Shane and Dayna at the beach with Toby.

There is also a playground at this family-friendly park, and here you can see Midori playing on the slide. She was quite taken with Jeremi throughout the weekend, and wanted to be wherever he was, even if that meant being carried 100 m in the shallow water out to where he'd waded. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the two of them - I always forget to take pictures, so there end up being many more of me than there are of Jeremi. I'll try to improve on this in future.
Here I am playing with Midori in the sand. My goal of the afternoon was to have her get over her fear of seaweed, until it could become fun. I didn't quite succeed, but she was willing to touch it by the end, and even popped one of the poppers (a kind of seaweed with little air pockets in it - more fun than bubble wrap). You can see the snow-capped mountains of the mainland across the strait.
Finally, here's a picture of Toby and me playing back at the campsite after a day of much activity. Toby is walking now, and entertained himself for many hours walking around, trying to get out of the wagon, and sticking rocks in his mouth. (We tried to prevent the last one of these activities, but sometimes he was too quick for us.)

The Canada Day run

So here are our only pictures from the Canada Day run. Unfortunately we only got a couple, partly because the batteries were dying. Also, Jeremi took both of them, so he's not in them. Here's a picture from before the race at Gerd's apartment, where a few of us met at 7:15 to walk over to where the race began at 8:00 am. Gerd is wearing his hat and sunglasses which make him look like Jack Nicholson trying to evade reporters.


And here we are after the race , at a local coffee shop to have some celebratory Coffee Toffee Chillers and pastries for (from left) Ed, Gerd, and Laura. Jeremi and I held out until we were able to get beer at a bar down the street at 11:00 am. On the whole the race went pretty well. Jeremi finished ahead of me by almost 2 minutes, where he was at around 1:03 and I was around 1:05, but we got our timing chips mixed up (shoe tags that record our exact start and stop times), so I actually beat him according to the official race results.

A training run at Elk & Beaver Lakes

As some of you know, Jeremi and I took part in a 10 km run on Canada Day (more on that in a separate post). We were part of a team of runners and walkers who work or study in the same building as me, either at UVic or CCCma (where I am). In preparation for this event, I invited some people out to a park north of Victoria at Elk and Beaver Lakes, for a practice run or walk, followed by a picnic. The two lakes are circled by a fairly level gravel trail which is conveniently exactly 10 km long. (I'm sure this is partly because the national rowing team trains on Elk Lake.) It was also a good chance for Jenny to visit with some of her friends in Victoria.

I have to admit that the practice run didn't go so well for me, after drinking a couple bottles of red wine the night before at a bookclub meeting, and then sleeping less than 5 hours before having to get up and drive Jeremi to work on Sunday morning. (He was on duty that day, and the buses don't run early enough on Sunday mornings to get him there on time.) Speaking of the bookclub meeting, here's a couple of picture sfrom that, taken by one of the members, Shelley. The meeting was held at Shannon's apartment, and we were discussing Afterlands by Stephen Heighton, which I really enjoyed. Jeremi came along too, and spent the evening playing online poker and drinking beer with Shannon's boyfriend, Gord.

It was also well over 30 degrees by the time I started running, and I was hopelessly exhausted. The first 5 km were painful but all right, but then I had to stop and throw up by the side of the trail. A runner in her 60s stopped to see if I was all right and offer me some water, and then to lecture me kindly when I informed her that I was hungover rather than suffering from heat exhaustion or over-exertion. At that point I didn't have much choice about whether to finish or not, being half way through a 5 km loop, so I kept going, but walked most of the second half. Gerd, however, speed-walked the entire way, and finished the 10 km in an impressive 1:15, beating me tidily. Here you can see him recovering in the shade of a tree.



Here's Eunice and Alvaro, with their dog Smores. Their son Erico was also there, but he was off getting soaked and soaking other kids with their incredibly high-powered water guns.

And here is Jenny with Katrin (who works at UVic), her daughter Kelina, and her husband Morris.

A trip to French Beach with Jenny

The weekend before Canada Day we were visited by our friend Jenny, from Vancouver. This happened to be a weekend of record-breaking heat along the West Coast, certainly the hottest we've felt it since living here. Of course out here that just means above 30 degrees, which is barely considered hot in most of the country, but still. Oh, and the humidity was only about 30%, but for us it was hot!

On the Saturday of her visit we decided to head out to French Beach, one of the beautiful beaches on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, west of the city. It has a gently sloping sandy bottom, with smooth rocks along a short littered with driftwood. The only downside is that the water temperature rarely gets above 12 degrees, even in the heat of summer. Still, it was warm enough for a bit of swimming!


Here Jeremi and I are seen perched on one of the giant driftwood stumps, studying from the German-English picture dictionary we borrowed from the library. It's written for 3-5 year-olds I think, but it serves our purposes at the moment.
Here you have actual proof that we were swimming in the incredibly cold waters. While it looks like a nice photo of Jeremi gently supporting me while I flutter kick, this is actually the moment that I was slammed back into the water after a complicated aquatic wrestling move that saw me swung around above his head a few times. The mountains in the background are those in Washington State.And here is a self-portrait of Jenny, our official photographer and German teacher for the day's expedition!
And finally, one last self-portrait of Jenny, or at least her belly. She is currently about 5 months pregnant, and has just a small belly at this point, but it looks a little bigger from her perspective. She's moving to Frankfurt in August to live with her boyfriend and have the baby there, which will be wonderful for us if we're living in Jena next year! (Frankfurt is about 3 hours away by train, which by German standards is considered far, but by Canadian standards sounds like a day trip.)

A visit with Annushka

Well I know that it's been over a month since this picture was actually taken, but I knew that my family (Julia here) would still love to see a picture of Annushka and her little boy, Michael. I know I hadn't seen her in about 9 years, and I imagine that it's about the same for you guys. She's doing really well, working as a nurse's aid at Hastings Manor, which has had a major facelift since the last time I was in Belleville. Her and her husband have a nice house just north of town, and I was lucky enough to get to see her mom and Grant (who are now married), as well as Annushka's dad while we were passing through. She looks much the same (as I suppose I do to her) though her hair is really long, which you can't quite see here. As you can see, her son is adorable.