Love them or hate them, this town lives off the tourists.
Without the cruiseships and the many thousands of visitors they bring, this place would dry up and blow away... We all know that.
I was downtown last night taking in the sights, acting like the perpetual tourist that I am, even after six years of living here in Victora. Playing the part of a tourist gives you great freedom when it comes to aiming a camera anywhere and everywhere. The locals put up with a lot... having cameras aimed in our faces is the least of it!
The streets were jammed up by the horse and carriage trade...
That looks like a big load for two horses, don't you think?
The lower boardwalk was busy. Water taxis came and went every couple of minutes.
The tourists come from all over. We have many visitors from Japan and China. I meet a lot of people from the UK and Germany. That Australian accent is easy to overhear on the streets as is the Spanish language. And then of course there are the Americans. Lots of them. The nicest people in the world one-on-one, but get them in large groups and look out!
I guess last night a bunch of young people were drunk and boisterous. It may have been a visiting sports team or high school marching band. There was loud and bellicose singing.... a national athem. I don't want to say from which nation, but the singers were drunk, abnoxious and surprisingly on key... I just caught the end of the song:
O’er the land of the freeeeeee...
and the home of the brave
Waves of loud raucous laughter. A guy in a Vancouver Canucks hockey jersey looked and me and shrugged. "Play ball?" he asked and rolled his eyes.
Now I gotta ask: are you seriously going to come to a foreign country, stand on the lawn of the parliament buildings, beneath a war memorial and sing your own national anthem? Allies or not, you people need to shape up and show some class! I'd like to see some drunken Canadians try that at Arlington National Cemetery, or better yet, outside a bar in Boston.
You can't read the writing on the large plaque of the memorial in this image, but this is what it says:
To Our
Glorious
Dead
1914 - 1919
1939 - 1945
And below that:
Korea
1950 - 1953
Afghanistan
2001 - 2014
Overheard last night beneath the war memorial: Hey look, they got the starting dates wrong for both world wars! HaHa!
So yeah... that actually happened. To which I must reply...Dear whoever you are... GO HOME, AND DON'T EVER COME BACK. (leave your cash before you go, thank you)
End of Rant.
p.s. Am I actually upset? Nah... I just wanted to show you some pretty pictures. Still - just sayin' you know? WTF???
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