Oh, Canada!

So on Wednesday I managed to get to Canada. I spent hours on Monday night trying to figure out if I could get to Victoria or just to Sidney, and how I could get there, and what I might be able to do. I ended up just going to Sidney on the Washington State Ferry; all the private ferries that offer stops in both Friday Harbor and Victoria only go to those cities from some other point - they don't offer trips between Friday Harbor and Victoria. I suppose I could have taken a bus from Sidney to Victoria, but I didn't particularly want to add another step to my trip - I wanted time to actually see things! I ended up having to take a 6 am ferry from Friday Harbor to Anacortes, WA, before taking an 8:15 am ferry from Anacortes to Sidney. (The Washington State Ferry System only runs 2 ferries a day from Anacortes to Sidney and back, one in the morning that doesn't make any other stops and one in the afternoon/evening that stops in Friday Harbor.) I had to get up at 4:30 am to be sure I'd get to town in time to catch the first ferry! (Because it takes me about 30 minutes to bike into town, they tell you to be at the ferry dock at least 30 minutes before the ferry's posted departure time, and I had to actually wake up, eat breakfast, and get ready to leave.)

Anyway, I got into Sidney around 10:30 am. The Canadian customs people were really nice and quick; it took me less than 5 minutes to get through. I spent the day mostly walking around downtown Sidney. It felt very quiet, even when the shops got busy later in the day. They had 11 bookstores within a couple blocks of each other!!! Most of them were used book stores of the most awesome type, where you go in and they have so many books they have to make piles on the floor and on top of shelves (that don't necessarily match each other), and every time you go around a corner of a shelf or through a doorway you discover even more books. It was pretty much heaven, getting to wander through all the bookstores. I found a book about crocheting decorations for the home that was very obviously from the 1970s. Some of the patterns looked decent enough, except for the color schemes, which were largely olive green with orange or yellow - those '70s types of color combinations. I also visited Sidney's local historical museum, which gave the history of the town and a bit about the surrounding area on the Saanich Peninsula. I found a little bakery that actually had decently priced pastries!! At home, it seems like all the little bakeries charge you at least $5 for a small brownie. The one I visited seemed to charge much less for things. I got a huge strawberry rhubarb turnover - for $1.26!!! (After tax!) I had a great time just chilling, strolling past the stores and window shopping and being an actual tourist for once. Sidney was very nice; it was a quaint small-town without the feeling that it was trying to be quaint. It was a very unpretentious quaintness.

The one thing I can't figure out: I passed a gas station, and the sign was advertising the price as "144.9" I have no idea what that means! It seems impossible that they would be charging $144.90 for a gallon of gas (even a Canadian gallon, which is apparently larger than a US gallon), and of course a liter is even smaller than a gallon. Can anyone tell me what the "144.9" meant??

When I came back to Friday Harbor, the US Customs guy wanted to know every single detail of my travel. It would have been easier just to hand him a complete itinerary of my day!! I suppose it might have seemed a little odd at first glance, someone from North Carolina getting off a ferry from Canada in Friday Harbor, but the second thing I told him (after telling him that I live in North Carolina) was that I have an internship on San Juan Island. And I went to Canada to do sightseeing. And I just brought back some souvenirs (okay, what I actually brought back was a candy bar, a book, and some yarn, but I figured saying "souvenir" was close enough). And I just went to Sidney, I didn't go to Victoria, and only for the day. And I walked around in Canada. And I didn't go to Victoria, I just went to Sidney. And I got there by taking the ferry from Anacortes. And I got to Anacortes on the ferry. And I didn't go to Anacortes from Seattle, I took the ferry from Friday Harbor that morning because I'm living on the island for my internship, and then I took the ferry from Anacortes to Sidney, where I walked around for the day. -Then he said he'd forgotten about my having an internship on the island and let me go. He must've forgotten pretty fast!! Along with forgetting a couple times that I said I only went to Sidney, NOT Victoria. Honestly, I understand that they're trying to keep us safe, but he spent more time questioning me about my traveling than the Canadian woman in front of me! And I think they could stand to be a little friendlier, too.

We've also gotten in a new seal, Ocelot (sorry, no pictures yet!), as well as a young Coot. He's pretty cute - he's got feet that are as big as he is tall!! It's amusing to see this little tiny bird with feet that look like they belong on something 5 times his size, because he's got these long, super-skinny toes.

The past few days have been downright chilly! I do like cool weather, but not in the middle of summer! As beautiful as it is out here, I just can't see myself living in a place where you need to wear long sleeves and jeans in July because you'll be cold otherwise (unless it's south of the equator!).

We've also got a third otter kit in, sent to us from another rehab center. He's a bit smaller than the two we already have, so he's being kept separately. Part of that may be from poor nutrition - they were feeding him apples, carrots, quail, eggs, and corn on the cob at the other center. Everyone here was pretty flabbergasted by the diet he'd been getting - it's not the sort of thing you should be feeding a river otter. And I would think it wouldn't be that difficult to do a little research on what other rehab centers would feed a river otter, or to at least research otters' natural history to discover what they eat in the wild and try to find suitable alternatives. It's baffling, trying to figure out why they decided to give this poor kit the diet they did. (Also, I know several people who expressed a desire to own an otter. They are incredibly cute... but they are also very gross and smelly!! Consider yourself warned. ;-D)