People have been asking when I’m going to post about my Canada trip. So here it is:

From June 30-July 4, Kyle and I went to Seattle to visit his dad. On July 1, we took a clipper from downtown Seattle to Victoria, BC.

Victoria is a lovely, smallish city of about 300,000 people. It is also the capital of British Columbia. While the Northern tip of Vancouver Island get as much as 300 inches of rain a year, Victoria is protected by mountain chains on either side so that bad weather blows right over it. As a result, it has a pleasant Mediterranean climate capable of growing grapes and all kinds of flowers.

We arrived on Canada Day. After we checked into the hotel, we had dinner and then wandered around the city. Everyone was wearing red-and-white, the colors of the Canadian flag, and bands were playing everywhere we looked– including a street musician playing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. (I was extremely excited about this and my new Anne of Green Gables snowglobe because I am a nerd who likes nerdy things.)

(The lawn in front of the capitol building was covered with people.)

(Canadian children have to pee!)

After that, we sat on the lawn outside the hotel and watched fireworks. The show had some of the biggest explosions I’ve ever seen, but the finale was a little weak.

On July 2, we took a tour bus to The Butchart Gardens. This massive set of five gardens is the work of Jennie Butchart, the wife of Robert Butchart, who made a fortune in concrete. Although the garden didn’t have a lot in terms of unusual plants or surprising layouts, the place is absolutely stunning. We spent two hours walking through it.

(The Sunken Gardens–formerly a rock quarry)

(Kyle and me)

(The Italian Garden was my favorite)

After that, we went shopping, visited the Victoria museum, saw an IMAX show, and went to a bug museum, which was full of interesting insects, including the gorgeous Orchid mantis. At the end of the day, we had dinner on the 18th floor of a hotel. I tried an elk steak, which was a little on the gamey side, but worth trying. As we ate, we saw the sun set over the city.

On the way back, the capitol building was lit up like a Lite-Brite.

On July 3, we took the clipper back to Seattle and went to a baseball game. It was the Tacoma Rainiers against the Fresno Grizzlies, who lost. It was only the second baseball game I have ever been to. I really liked it once we were in there, although my main entertainment was a three-year-old named Hunter who kept turning around and poking us in the knees and then doubling over in laughter when we pretended to be shocked. Also, 10 skydivers jumped from a plane hovering 13,000 feet above our head and landed in the stadium.

On July 4, we flew back home. We got into San Francisco around 9:30 p.m., right when fireworks were going off. It was amazingly beautiful. Between the grids of orange and yellow streetlights, personal fountains glittered like hundreds of tiny mirrors refracting in a light, and then the bigger fireworks would burst up suddenly, unexpectantly delicate and colorful. You haven’t seen fireworks until you’ve seen them from the air.