Saturday:
Our flight from San Diego took off at 8am on June 4th, which meant we had to leave home by 5am for the hour-long drive to the airport, which meant our alarms went off at 4:30am that morning! One of our friends was kind enough to drive us so we wouldn't have to leave our car at the airport all week. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep the night before. But, we were up and at 'em that morning, full of anticipation! We flew Alaska Airlines, and upgraded to an exit row for more leg room! Along the way, we were able to see Mt. Rainier's peak! That was pretty cool!
When we got into Seattle and to our first of 4 hotels, The Alexis, it was just before noon. I had called ahead and requested early check in. This request is never guaranteed, and it is all based upon when guests of the previous night check out of the room that we are going to be in, and how quickly the maids can turn that room around. Even before we settled our bill with the cab, our luggage was at the front desk and the doors were being held open for us! GREAT service! Turns out our room was ready for us! Yes! This actually turned out to be a huge blessing to us because we needed to rest! Like I said, neither of us slept well the night so we pretty much spent the whole day resting. It was great to not have anywhere to be; the only thing in Seattle we had set in stone was on Friday, and that was a loooong way away! That evening, we were energized enough to walk a bit of Pike Place Market and grab a bite to eat!
Sunday:
It was another "take-it-easy" day on Sunday in Seattle, but it was shaping up to be a hot one! That morning we went to the Original Pancake House with one of Robbie's former coworkers at Ceasars, and it was delicious as usual! OPH seems to have become a tradition each time we visit Seattle. After OPH, we meandered to the Space Needle. From the top, we were able to see planes taking off from the airport, Lake Union, and Queen Anne. Unlike the last time we went up in the Needle, this time the skies were crystal clear! We were able to see stunning views of the Sound, and most importantly, Mt. Rainier! There it was situated perfectly as a nice addition to the city-scape! I was able to manipulate one of the pictures that I took to have Mt. Rainier really stand out (picture below).
After the Space Needle, we took the one-stop monorail from the Needle to downtown. I'm really glad we did because we stumbled upon the coolest Brain Game Store in the monorail station. We spent a ton of time in there, as they had a bunch of boards set up so we could learn how to play them from the employees. Robbie was in his happy place! He loves anything (games especially) that are challenging. We ended up shipping 3 board games and a book to our house! They were waiting for us when we got back! We then took another stroll in Pike Place Market to get some famous Beecher's Cheese to take back and enjoy in our hotel room. That was pretty much all we did on Sunday because Monday was going to be an early morning for us.
Monday:
We had to be at Pier 69 in Seattle on Monday by 6:45am for a 7:30am take-off on the Victoria Clipper, our ferry through international waters to Canada! It was easy waking up this morning because we were both super excited for the 2nd leg of our trip! This trip into Canada was going to be my 3rd international trip, and my first one with Robbie! And, each international destination I have been to have been by 3 different modes of transportation: air (Paris), land (Mexico), and sea (Canada)! Pretty cool! Robbie had been to Canada one time previous to this when he took a school trip out east; they stopped at Niagara Falls and entered Canada. The Victoria Clipper is a double-decker vessel, and it got us to Victoria non-stop. The view of the skyline was just beautiful as we sailed away from Seattle! We were on our way!
The ferry ride took a little less that 3 hours, but it felt like a shorter amount of time. About half of the way there, we were travelling through the Puget Sound, and we were surrounded by islands. The Sound gave way to another waterway called the Straight of Juan de Fuca, and it was half-way through this Straight that we were finally in Canadian waters!
In no time we were docking in Victoria, and right from the get-go, the city was beautiful! Everyone had to go through Customs first, and we both got our first stamp on our brand new passports! Apparently nowadays we have to ask the Customs Officer to stamp our passports. I did not know they changed that policy; probably to get people through faster.
It was only a 2 block walk before we were at our hotel, the Harbour Towers and Suites. We chose this hotel based on its proximity to the harbor, and the fact that we could reserve an ocean view room. And man, it did not disappoint! Again, we were able to get early-check in, and from the moment we walked in the door, we knew we weren't going to regret our room choice! The hotel room was a suite with a kitchenette, living room with windows that opened up, and a separate bedroom with a balcony off it with the most stunning views of the harbor ever! We wasted zero time getting out to explore.
Our hotel was just down the street from Victoria's Legislative Building, the capitol of British Columbia, so we went there first! Let me just say, this building looks amazing! As we headed to the front steps we noticed that they were doing a parliament re-enactment as part of the Parliamentary Players Program, hilighting the architect of the building. He played out how he became to be the architect of not only this building, but the regal Empress Hotel, and much of the docking area for the ships and ferries. The way he became architect was purely out of luck, as his name was chosen by the sheer sound of it. Whomever was choosing the architect had 3 to choose from, and they liked his name the best. Lucky for Canada, it turned out to be a gorgeous building! It was a really cute re-enactment!
After we were done at the Parliament Building, we headed across the street to a food truck festival, just in time for lunch! As we were ordering, we found out our food truck guy was born in Southern California but moved to Canada when he was 2 years old. He told us that Victoria had just gone through a hot spell with temps reaching over 30 degrees! Ha!
Our plan for the rest of the day was to go to a big and popular park called Beacon Hill Park. This park is the biggest park in Victoria, and to us it was the most beautiful, too! Our favorite part was an area with a large pond, and the coolest stone bridge I've ever seen; it beats out Central Park in NYC, no question! We spent a lot of our time in that area. Moving further along in the park was a petting zoo with all kinds of animals including turkeys and beautiful peacocks!
Our destination in the park was a lookout point high above the park and overlooking the Straight of Juan de Fuca! It was exhausting getting up the hill, but it was well worth it! The views were breathtaking! We could definitely see the Straight, and the snow-capped Olympic Mountain Range beyond that was the icing on the cake! Walking down the hill from the lookout was much easier. We made our way to the coast, found a bench, and just took in the Canadian beauty! In front of us was a cute beach, and water all around us as far as the eye could see. We saw a bunch of boats and ships from where we were. We did not want to leave!
When we did decide to leave, we walked back through the park and to our hotel to relax! For dinner that night, we found a cute restaurant right on the harbor. Then we got to see the harbor go from daylight to nighttime from our hotel patio, which was just amazing! It was a perfect ending to our first night abroad!
Tuesday:
When we came into the Victoria harbor on the ferry, we passed a really cool lighthouse that I really wanted to see, so we planned our day around that. First, we had to go to a Canadian staple, Tim Horton's coffee shop. The verdict: underwhelming. The only reason we heard about it is because we watch How I Met Your Mother and Robin mentions it all the time as being a great coffee shop. I'm assuming its the coffee that brings people back, but being neither of us drink coffee, the donuts we just 'meh.' The thing that made us chuckle the most was when we asked a guy for directions to Tim Horton's, he said in a very thick Canadian accent "Oh, Timmy Ho's is just down the street!" It was pretty cool though, that right next to Tim Horton's was a travel agency!
After Tim Horton's, we made our way back down to the harbor and trekked to the lighthouse. It was quite a walk to the lighthouse, but we were able to see a bunch of residential areas along the way, and it was just quintessential! When we got to the coast near the lighthouse, it was situated at the end of a long walkway. The lighthouse was really pretty when we got to it, and it was really windy! The lighthouse is placed on the end of the inlet where all the boats come into the harbor to dock, so it was fun to see all the traffic in that area! We even saw the Victoria Clipper taking off to Seattle! It was really fun to see that! Also nearby the lighthouse is where the Canadian Coast Guard sits!
One cool aspect about the walkway to the lighthouse is that on the sides below the walkway are large rocks that people can walk on, so we took that pathway back to land. It was a cool experience to walk so close to the water! Right as we got to land was a nice little cafe where we had lunch.
After the lighthouse and lunch, we found a point on the island that has another lookout called Clover Point Park, and it's one of the most southern tips of Canada. That point was a long ways from the lighthouse, but we were excited to walk along the coast the whole way with the Olympic Mountains to the right! The views were definitely amazing from this park, and we stayed there for a while, despite the wind!
When we left Clover Point Park, we headed back to the hotel and got dressed for our fancy night on the town. The previous day, we saw horse and carriage rides taking place, and we thought that would be a fun thing to do, so we reserved a ride for our fancy night! The carriage took off not far from our hotel, and we selected the ride to go through Beacon Hill Park. The horse we had was named Molly, and her driver Anna gave us a history lesson throughout our ride. One of the stories she told us along the way was that the statue on top of the Legislature Building has 2 left legs! When they were hoisting the statue up to the top, the right leg fell off, and they had already gotten rid of the mold, and when they got down to the ground to look for it, it was already gone! So, they just re-created the left leg! Also, in Beacon Hill Park, there is a big Watering Pail that is currently being used as a small water park! The carriage ride was a wonderful way to get a different perspective of the city.
Our dinner reservations after the horse and carriage ride was at great restaurant on the harbor right next to the ferry docks! I had the best chicken and risotto in the world, and we had a fun little visitor in the form of a seagull, who was patiently waiting for handouts! Super cute! Day 2 in Canada was in the books!
Wednesday:
One of the most popular attractions in Victoria is the Butchart (pronounced "Boo-shart) Gardens. As we were looking for things to do in Victoria, the Butchart Gardens was on the top of each internet search I found! Robbie's coworker had been to Victoria before and had great things to say, so it was determined that the Gardens were on our list. In my research, I was reading that they have 5 separate gardens within the grounds; some people could spend multiple days here depending on their love of gardens and flowers!
The Gardens are about 30 miles north of the city and the best way to get there was to take a charter bus that picked us up right in front of our hotel! Very convenient! The day we went was pretty overcast, but upon speaking to one of our hotel front desk agents, he said that going on overcast days is preferred because the flowers pop with color more on days like this. Cool!
When we arrived to the Butchart Gardens, just inside the gate was a life-size chess set, which made Robbie very happy! He moved all the pieces to make up his favorite game! It was a pretty cool thing for him!
The first garden we arrived at was one of the more popular ones, the Sunken Garden.The area that you walk to the Sunken Garden is from the top, looking into the garden, and it just took my breath away! The whole grounds used to be a limestone deposit, with the Sunken Garden being a Limestone quarry! Once the limestone need was depleted, the wife of the owner was bet that flowers can't grow on top of limestone, so she spent the next 9 years proving this person wrong, and the rest is history! The Sunken Garden is indescribable, so I took a bunch of photos to let them do the talking! Just stunning!
From the Sunken Garden we came across a lake that happened to give boat rides for a different perspective of the gardens from the water! It was a fun boat ride, just tootling around, and of course we got a bunch of history of the area! In the water were abandoned boats, and also boats they called "live-aboard's." The Canadian government allowed people to just abandon boats only if they could float, didn't cause pollution, and if the boat was anchored. Live-aboard's were boats that people currently live on!
After the boat ride, we headed through the Japanese Garden. When I was looking online, I saw a bunch of cherry blossom trees in bloom in the Japanese Gardens, but unfortunately they weren't in bloom when we visited. Sad. However, the Japanese Gardens were still beautiful!
Right through the Japanese Gardens came the Rose Garden. This Garden was very popular, and there were several different kinds of roses everywhere you looked. The good thing about the Rose Garden, as well as the other Gardens, was that each type of rose was labeled with what their name was. That was helpful to me. I took a bunch of close-ups of the different kinds of roses just so you could see the variation!
At this point in our Garden Tour, we needed to relax and recharge, so we strolled over to an ice cream vendor and I had one of the greatest twist cones ever! Right next to the ice cream stand was a rose carousel. This was just a regular carousel you can find in an amusement park, but it was under a rose garden roof! The roses were not in bloom, but I could only imagine what it looked like when they were!
The last Garden we went to was the Italian Garden. This was the most underwhelming Garden throughout the grounds, but even if it stood alone, it was still beautiful!
The buses we took up to the Butchart Gardens left every hour on the hour. By this time it was about 15 minutes before the hour, so I had just enough time to skim the gift shop, and then we were back on the bus. The bus ride home was mostly downhill, so we were able to see the Olympic Mountains from afar, which are always beautiful!
When we arrived back in Victoria, we reserved our spot on a Harbour Cruise Tour. Taking a Water Taxi around the harbour was one of the things I really wanted to do in Victoria. When we got up to pay for the Water Taxi, we noticed a Harbour Cruise Tour was cheaper, so we booked that instead. The Tour took us all over the Harbour, as well as near much of the shoreline on the island. Hilights included seeing floating houses, in-the-water bird houses, and I even spotted a boat with a Packers flag on the front! Represent! The Tour was a really fun experience, and we even rode some big waves! Weeeee!
On our way back from dinner, we stopped at a souvenir shop, then back to our hotel to watch the sun go down on the Victoria portion of our trip!
Thursday:
We had an 11:30am ferry back to Seattle, so we made sure we left extra time in the morning to go back to Beacon Hill Park to feed the ducks! We had some crackers left over from our cheese platter in Seattle, so we broke those up and spent almost an hour feeding the ducks. Well, Robbie spent almost an hour feeding the ducks; me, I spent most of that time taking pictures of course!
It was sadly time to say goodbye to the Great North one last time. As soon as the ferry left the dock, I went right outside to bid it farewell until I could no longer see the harbour. The ferry ride back to Seattle seemed to take longer than the ferry ride up to Victoria, and it was delayed even more just off the coast of Seattle due to a log jam in the engine. While that was being taken care of, we were pretty much stalled in the middle of the Sound, but that allowed us to see a couple hump-back whales, which was awesome! In Victoria, there were whale-watching excursions available for purchase, but for us on the ferry, it was free!!
Most of our vacations have a small hiccup in some kind of form, and for this trip, the hiccup came after we finished clearing Customs in Seattle. Our plan for the last 2 days in Seattle was to go back to the airport directly from the ferry, rent a car, head even further south, then the next morning see Mt. Rainier. But later this night, we had dinner plans in downtown Seattle. Our original plan was to get our car, check into our hotel, then drive back up to Seattle to meet our friends for dinner. Keep that in mind. :) When we cleared Customs at about 3pm, we advised one of the ferry terminal workers that we were headed to the airport, so he told us to hop into a shuttle that was waiting right at the curb. We were the last passengers to get onto the shuttle, so we immediately started driving. Now, I just have to say that Seattle traffic is bad from about 2pm-7pm-ish, due to rush hour. We were directed into the airport shuttle so fast that Robbie didn't even have time to check and see how bad traffic really was. Plus, we were depending on the shuttle driver to zip us around the heavily trafficked areas in downtown. We soon found out that the driver was clueless, and he had just blown past the exit we needed to take for a sufficient route to the airport. We don't know why. Now, we were at the mercy of the stoplights, heading to the I-5 South, which was even more congested. We were trying to zig-zag through downtown Seattle at the height of rush hour, and the driver was still clueless. The couple sitting in front of us in the shuttle got out a traffic app and was trying to direct the driver on where to go. After about 45 minutes in the shuttle with hardly any progress made, Robbie asked the driver to pull over, requesting to get out. When he pulled over, the driver got our luggage from the back and asked for the $45 fare. We refused to give it to him considering the service was never finished, let alone barely begun. The driver said that if we didn't pay, his boss was going to make him pay. Haha. The driver would not take off until we started calling his boss; as soon as Robbie started dialing the number, the driver left, and we hung up the phone.What a crazy business practice that would be. How about have a driver know where he is going! Everything about that shuttle ride was just absurd. By the time we got out of the shuttle, it was a little after 4pm.
So, now we were at a street corner in the middle of downtown Seattle, still needing to get to the airport. Our last hope was taking the lightrail because we knew a cab wouldn't get there any faster than the shuttle would. We had no idea how close the nearest station was, and even if one was close, we still had a 40 minute ride on it to get to the airport! We had to think outside of the box on this one. We then had the idea of cancelling the Mt. Rainier portion of our trip altogether! That was probably the best idea, but that meant we had to cancel our rental car and our hotel for the night, and rebook a hotel in downtown. I was expecting to pay through the roof because hotels in Seattle aren't cheap, and they are based on availability, so my travel agent brain thought booking a hotel for the night-of in downtown was nearly impossible. Our original hotel for the night was reserved in a city called Puyallup, which was about 20 miles south of the airport. Luckily the hotel in Puyallup could still be cancelled without penalty (with only hours to spare). Knowing this, we started looking into available hotels in Seattle. I started by calling the hotel that we had booked for Friday, asking if we could extend our stay. Unfortunately they were sold out for Thursday night. Darn. Robbie continued to look online for a reasonably-priced hotel that was somewhat within walking distance of the street corner we were currently on. We found a Courtyard Marriott with availability that was at a decent price-point, so we booked it! After we booked the Courtyard, we cancelled the hotel in Puyallup, and also the car rental, both free of charge thankfully! All in all, we came out almost even, although our new hotel was more expensive than the one we just cancelled. We saved on our car rental, gas, and sanity! Another bonus was that the newly-booked Courtyard was just a short-distance away from our street corner, and the building right next to it was where we had to be for our dinner plans! That was completely unplanned, but very welcoming to us when we figured that out. As soon as we walked into the Courtyard, we were greeted with nothing but professionalism and prompt service!
We had a a couple hours to relax before we had to be next door for dinner. Robbie's former coworker from Caesars, Hilary (the same gal we went to breakfast with earlier in the week), lives in an apartment that has a rooftop overlooking Lake Union, and the rooftop is complete with grilling equipment. Also coming to dinner was another former coworker Nick and his girlfriend. The views were amazing, the food was excellent, and the company was stellar! Thanks for having us, Hilary!
Notice the building behind me, the Courtyard Marriott, where we were staying!
Friday:
Friday was the day that we had our only thing planned in the Seattle area, and funny enough, it was one of the things we needed a car rental for. We were going to take a tour of the Boeing Factory, and I was super excited!! I've known for quite some time that the Boeing Factory was near Seattle, but each time we have been there, we have never been able to fit it into our schedule until now. The Boeing Factory is about a half hour north of Seattle in Everett, which is why we needed a car. After telling our friends the night before of our adventure with the airport shuttle, Nick graciously lent us his car to get to Everett. Thanks Nick! That morning, we hit the road, and stopped along the way for breakfast.
We arrived at the Future of Flight Aviation Center for the Boeing Tour, which is in a completely different area and building than the actual factory. We arrived early which gave us time to look around. The Aviation Center has a gallery with a bunch of model Boeing planes hanging from the ceiling, real-size jet engines on the floor, as well as a simulator, a real cockpit of a Boeing 777, and hands-on activities. I was able to go into the cockpit and it was exhilarating! I was definitely in my happy place; it felt like Christmas Morning!
Once it was time for our tour, we found that cameras and phones were prohibited in the factory. I was kinda sad at first, but then it was kinda fun to know I would be hanging onto these memories for myself only. Everyone took a charter bus from the Aviation Center to the actual Factory, and as we approached it, my jaw dropped to the floor. The Boeing Factory was HUUUUUGE! It is the largest building in the world by volume (472+ million cubic feet), and covers 98.3 acres! The grounds even have the only privately-owned highway overpass. The 8-story building assembles the Boeing 747, 767, 777, 787, Boeing Dreamliner, and the Dreamlifter! They are also going to be starting production on the Boeing 777X, the best and biggest of them all! All of these planes are wide-bodied, meaning there are 3 rows of seating, and 2 aisles in the plane. Incredible! Near the actual factory are 3 big Paint Buildings, where all the planes get their signature look. We didn't get to go into one of these buildings, but I sure wish we could have.
Our bus made 2 stops on the tour, to 2 different areas of the plant. When we walked in, we had to go down this huge corridor to service elevators that could fit big mack-trucks in to deliver various items to each floor. Each time we got to our viewing areas, our tour guide would inform us of what was happening, history of the factory, and fun facts. He was very knowledgeable, and he was one of our favorite guides of the trip! He is what they call a Factory Brat, meaning he grew up near the factory and had more insider info!
Being at the viewing areas was pretty cool for me. I never could have prepared myself for how awesomely big the floor space actually was, and I still can't get over the fact that that was a real life working factory! Those planes that I saw being built will soon be flying the friendly skies! It looked like there were only a few people working on the floors at the time, but our guide said there were in fact hundreds of people working; a lot of them were working INSIDE the aircraft! I could've stood there all day long just watching them work! From the viewing areas, the planes looked really small being we were 3 stories off the floor, but when someone walked inside of a fuselage or next to a jet engine, I gained a little perspective! It was all just amazing!
I had been looking forward to the Boeing Tour since we bought the tickets a month before, and it did not disappoint! I can easily see myself going back again in the future! Just across the fence from the Aviation Center parking lot was the 9,000 ft. runway to the airport adjacent to the Boeing Factory. We were there just in time to see a huge British Airways flight touch down, which was awesome! It was the closest I have ever been to something like that!
After our tour, we headed down the road a little bit to an inlet to eat, and we also enjoyed the beach and floating docks a little bit too!
We knew that we would run into traffic on our way back south into Seattle. Robbie was driving and he entrusted his map to me. He told me that whenever the I-5 South got congested to take the exit before. After we got off the freeway, we created the best route to drop the car back off at Nick's. It took us a while to get back into the city but we were sure that it was faster than if we would have stayed on the freeway.
Once we dropped the car off at Nick's, we walked to our 4th and final hotel of the entire vacation, the Hilton Seattle. We were once again greeted with impeccable service, we checked in, and retired to our room for the rest of the night. Our view was cool, and we got to watch the sunset with the Sound peeking through beyond the skyscrapers.
Saturday:
Our flight home left the Seattle Airport at 11am, and we decided to take the lightrail to the airport. Even though we left our hotel at 8am, we didn't want another airport shuttle fiasco, so we went with the sure bet. As hard as it was to have this vacation come to an end, it would be nice to be back into our normal routine.
We had so much fun on our first ever international trip together. Through it all, we probably walked a total of 25 miles, stayed at 4 different hotels, traveled by air, land, and sea, saw some great sights, shared a lot of laughs, and made memories to last a lifetime. The one thing that sticks out is the sheer beauty of Canada! I was in constant awe! Also, if you think there's such thing as "Minnesota Nice," just go to Canada and that will be amplified by about 100%! Everyone was so nice and willing to help. When we would just be walking down the street, passersby would just smile and say hello. Such a simple gesture that has become lost on a lot of us. I was telling Robbie that more people in the States should adopt this attitude. It's not hard, people! As I sit and write this, I have such a longing to go back, especially to Victoria! Maybe one day we will fly in luxury in the new Boeing 777X! Ha!
"Twenty years from now you will be disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the one's you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the tradewinds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." -Mark Twain
