Friday 4th of June - Seattle to Victoria

Woke up about seven, washed and dressed, started the packing, gave up and went for breakfast downstairs. Had two eggs over easy with toast, hash brown, and sausages (which were the correct shape) the eggs on toast were lovely. Back to the room, and more attempts to pack, eventually I had to abandon the duty free Pimms, I guess shot glasses and coffee cups do take up a lot of room! Thinking of buying a small suitcase if I can find a cheap one to make the packing easier.

Then to checkout, where I purchased a sommeliers corkscrew with the hotel logo on it, and unloaded my bloated suitcase.

Exited the hotel to catch a bus to the Space Needle (Seattle Centre) and ran into Raul, who told me about golf, and asked me to mail him photos of Europe and generally kept me chatting for about a quarter of an hour. Having passed him on to someone who works in the hotel I then waited about another ten minutes for the bus, and leapt aboard!

Seattle has a strange bus system, some buses are free, and some charge on exit, I don't know how to tell them apart, anyway I missed the stop I wanted and on getting off at the next one the driver waved me off without payment.

Looking at the photos of me, Karchita and Sharnina I was quite distressed by my hair, I have very fine hair that curls in odd directions when it reaches a certain length, and having washed it that evening it was flopping and curling everywhere, as I walked up the hill to where I hoped the Seattle Centre was I spotted a barbers so went in and asked for my hair to be defluffed, twenty dollars seemed like a lot to me, however at least my hair is shorter now!

Kept on up the hill and arrived at a basketball stadium at the top of Seattle Centre, so I started heading down to the Science centre, however whilst walking that way I thought "sod it, I'm going shopping instead" so went to the monorail and rode that to the Westgate centre, quite a cool ride really, not sure if I have done an outdoor monorail outside of Disney before, and one got an interesting look at parts of the city.

Not that much that I was interested in in the Westgate so went outside and had a cup of latte at "the most expensive Starbucks in the world", according to yesterdays guide Starbucks were desparate for the site but the owners who were a rival coffee chain refused to sell so Starbucks purchased the entire chain just for that site, wasn't a particularly wonderful version of the shop (although the barristas were very pretty) so I am dubious about the story.

Then popped into Maceys looking for pants and socks, Maceys is like Debenhams in that it seems to be made up of loads of small shops and has nothing of its own to sell, all of the socks were dull, and all of the pants overpriced, I need to go to France soon to get some more, just checked and they still do the Estragon sauce as well :-)

Anyway, by now it was almost midday so up to the food court in the Westlake I went, Firstly I purchased a bubble tea, I didn't read the directions so just ordered a Canteloupe tea, and when the lady asked what I wanted in it I just said Bubbles, I realised whilst she was putting it together that they did different flavoured bubbles, but I had the standard sort of flavoured but not really ones. Then I purchased some sushi which they actually made fresh, it was better than supermarket sushi, although it wasn't as good as the sushi Waitrose used to do, I suspect any food purchased in a foodcourt would be disappointing, and I was really spoiled in San Francisco.

Ambled round a little more however I didn't want any sweets, and couldn't fit any Lush in my suitcase, so decided to head back towards the hotel, hailed a cab as I had no idea which buses were appropriate. Didn't go into the hotel, but to a local coffee shop where I asked for something refreshing, and they suggested a peach iced tea where the peach was "subtle", I liked it, however the peach was about five times stronger than it is in liptonice so subtle may not have been the most appropriate word.

By the time I left the coffee shop they were all calling me Andrew as well, in the UK I would suspect mickey taking however in the US it seems genuine. Walked up to the hotel, picked up my suitcase, was interrogated again by reception on if I had enjoyed myself and if I was coming back to visit again soon, I would certainly like to come back, there is so much I haven't seen, however the costs of the flights and hotels tells me that it isn't likely into a taxi and off to dock 69 for the Victoria Clipper, despite giving this information to the driver, and despite the doorman also having told him this he decided to drop me at dock 66, as there was a big cruise ship there I suspect that he was after a fare there. I did tick him off, but walked the distance to the correct pier.

Checked myself and my luggage in, was told by the lady who checked me in that boarding would probably start at a quarter to three for the three fifteen departure, well we were marshalled into a queue, then into another queue, and then into a third queue before we could board, I think I actually got on board at the time we were supposed to depart. The ship itself was a fastcat, but much better laid out than the one on the Newhaven - Dieppe route was, although I think it was also quite a bit smaller.

Purchased some duty free fags and a bottle of "purified" water (I'm paying how much for tap water? Why?) wrote my postcards, looked out of the window at the beautiful forested shores on both sides of the sound and relaxed. After about an hour and an half things got a little choppy and I started to feel a little tom (in the same way that you can use any word for drunk (I was absolutely Seattled) I think you can use any word for nausea (I felt quite Seattle)) fortunately one was allowed out on the stern deck, and one was allowed to smoke there! So, after a lot of wasted gas I stood there in the very windy fresh air, smoking and feeling less sick, unfortunately I had a bit of a thing and couldn't approach the rail where the ashtray was as I saw myself going overm the drugs are making the compulsions better but they are still there. Saw some parasurfers on the way into Victoria, it looks like great fun, although very cold I should imagine.

Got off the boat in Victoria and passed through Canadian customs, really a pleasant experience, they don't seem to have the chip on their shoulder that so many American immigration officers do, put my case in the back of a taxi and told him my destination, about a minute later we were there, I apologised to him profusely and overtipped. although I was grateful that I hadn't pulled my case that quarter of a mile.

Checked in to the hotel, where they had upgraded me to a deluxe room with a balcony, which was nice, when I reached the room I found it was very large, only slightly smaller than my flat and with a lot more wardrobe space! The kitchen is quite impressive for an hotel, hobs (stovetops), oven, and microwave, having nothing to cook I went Off to the hotel restaurant, where I had a Caesar salad (you want $8.95 for that? It isn't even shaved parmigiana, actually it isn't even parmigiana), and a mushroom and tarragon chicken schnitzel, not sure what the mushrooms were for, and there wasn't enough tarragon for me, although I appreciate that I am inordinately fond of tarragon, and do like a lot of it. Along with a pint of very paletable Canadian wine.

MKitty wrote to me to confirm my arrival and location, she has a bad cold, so I hope that she feels better, and if not that she doesn't feel she has to come out just to see me when she would rather be in bed, after all whilst we can't do the gardens later, I think that she has a full time job, we can catch up for a meal or something in an evening.

Bedtime