dirtylibrarian

I had a really great weekend in Victoria with my mom!

We got a super deal through the Clipper website...about $300 for both of us to take the Clipper up and stay in a decent hotel.  While the hotel wasn't in the fanciest part of town (there were a ton of panhandlers and it was a bit dead at night), it had free bicycle rentals (which we never got around to using) and free pool passes for the local Y (hooray!  a nice pool, too). 

We did high tea twice, which was a bit of a mistake.  Lovely food and atmosphere, but way too decadent on the tummies.  Buchart Gardens was a long city bus ride (be careful to watch the schedule for leaving...we missed one by 5 minutes and had to wait almost an hour to get back to the city) and while very pretty...a little too groomed to "perfection" for my tastes.  Miniature World was kinda neat (especially the tiny circus exhibit).  But mostly we wandered around doing a bit of shopping and just checking things out. 

Plus, we went and saw two movies.  The Soloist was better than I had hoped, with some really great perspective on a person dealing with synesthesia and schizophrenia.  Plus I love movies where you feel like the place is a character in the story, and Los Angeles really came through in this one.  We also went to see Star Trek, which I found astonishingly delightful.  The casting was just great, and the movie was tremendously funny without being overly campy, and still very entertaining.  Plus some amazing action sequences.  Great stuff.

We ate a lot of good food over the weekend, too.  My favorite spot was a little neighborhood joint called John's Place, where I had lamb marinated in maple and discovered I really like Bloody Caesars.   We also had some awesome crepes at a place called True North Gelato.

Overall, very relaxing weekend and nice to hang with my mom.  Will post photos on flickr soon!

Home at last!  This was not too bad of a trip to Spokane, all things considered.   Not that I have any desire to go back anytime soon.

Down side:
1. Trapped in Spokane for 5 days.
2. Baby brother drove me crazy.
3. Icy and cold.
4. Yearly obligatory mass.
5. Airport delays.
6. Working 10 days before and 3 days after to make it work.

Up side:
1. Good quality time with folks.
2. Shopping with oldest pal.
3. Snow!
4. Snowshoeing.
5. Hikes.
6. Took a ton of pictures (347 downloaded, more edited out earlier).
7. Watched a bunch of movies
    a) Charlie Wilson's War (pretty decent, but Phillip Seymour Hoffman made it for me...I adore him).
    b) Year of the Dog (sucked ass...do not watch this movie)
    c) Blood Diamond (pretty good, though I slept through a bit in the middle).
    d) The Golden Compass (lovely and everything I could have hoped for...armored bears were especially AWESOME).
    e) Train Man (sweetest Japanese geek romance ever!)
    f)  Sweeney Todd (again, all I hoped for)
    g) Lucky You (I could not stay awake at all...so boring to watch people play poker).
8. Volunteered.
9. Excellent presents.
    a) fancy pepper mill I've longed for
    b) awesome heirloom scrimshaw from Grandma
    c) cheese knives!
    d) very nice socks
    e) more I am totally forgetting because I am tired
10) Introduced the family to Hot Apple Cider with Buttershots. 

Now I must go to bed if I really hope to get up and swim before work.