Hey all,

So…continuing from my last post.

Early the next morning (okay, not that early. We finally managed to leave the hotel at around 11AM), we set off in search of breakfast. We were done with walking, so we experienced Victoria’s public transit.

Remember how we had a list of restaurants we wanted to visit in Victoria? For our Sunday breakfast, we had chosen Blue Fox Cafe. According to everyone, it was the place to visit in Victoria, and we were pumped! Sadly, when we got there, the line-up was an hour long. We just couldn’t afford to wait that long (it was about noon when we got there) since we had other plans for the day. So we quickly googled up another place to eat. Floyd’s Diner came up in our searches and we walked two blocks north towards it.

We were starving by then, which made Floyd’s perfect. Their portions were HUGE. They were also on the Food Network show You Gotta Eat Here, where one item on thier menu got featured: The Mahoney. If you didn’t already know (I certainly didn’t until I read the menu), the Mahoney’s is a bit of a gamble. For $15, you get a mystery plate of food prepared by the chef. It’s different every time. If you and your friend both got Mahoneys, you’d get two completely different dishes. The fun part is this: you can choose to pay the $15, or flip a coin. If you win the coin toss, you get your Mahoney for free. If you lose, you pay double the amount, making it a $30 brunch. We didn’t get the Mahoney because we both craved other things on the menu, but it’s a cool concept!

When our bellies were full, we walked to the Royal BC Museum. The last time I was here, I must’ve been 9 years old. I didn’t remember any of it except for the woolly mammoth. I brushed up on my history and I think my favorite part was walking through these fake streets depicting what settlements would’ve looked like. The special exhibit they ran while we were there was on the gold rush. It was pretty cool to learn about the rise and fall of B.C’s Barkerville. I really want to give that town a visit now!

We stayed at the museum until closing time, and realized we had quite a few hours until dinner. We wandered around downtown Victoria, quenching our thirst with dollar drinks from McDonalds and slurpees. We spent a good hour or two at Chapters, devouring new books. And then came the moment we were waiting for: Il Terrazzo.

Il Terrazzo is supposedly the best Italian restaurant in Victoria, and although I can’t attest to that because I’m not an expert, the food is pretty good. My bf’s duck was so great he’d compliment every bite. The service was excellent, and the restaurant itself was very nice. If you’re looking to splurge a little, or want to take a date out somewhere fancy, go here. Also, their free bread was warm and delicious, and boy they were generous.

We were so full we ended up walking back to the hotel again. That’s when we started to watch Fresh Off The Boat. Best. Show. Ever. We knew we had to wake up early the next morning for the parade, but we ended up doing a small marathon of it. I was literally crying at some of the episodes. Happy, laughing crying.

The next morning was exhaustion. We woke up early because we didn’t want to miss the Victoria Day Parade nor the free pancake breakfast our hotel was hosting. We were right on the street where the parade passed by, so we could sit outside under tents and watch the three hour long parade. I’m not going to lie, I didn’t think we’d stay for the whole thing but we stuck through almost 2 and a half hours of it. There’s just something about parades where you want to see what is going to come next in the long line of floats, dancers and performers!

We spent a while at Mayfair Shopping Centre, but it wasn’t super interesting. We eventually started to crave Asian food, so we Googled up a nearby Korean restaurant..which turned out to not exist. Then we searched up a Japanese place…but when we got there, we found that they take a break from 2PM till 5PM. We got there at 2:10PM. So eventually we went to Swiss Chalet. So Asian. So satisfied. Not. But nonetheless, our waiter was super nice, and the ribs and chicken wings weren’t bad. Just not quite what we wanted when we were craving Asian food.

And that was it. Our little weekend getaway that was relatively inexpensive as far as going away goes!

Hopefully, there’s more summer adventures to come 🙂 Short getaways are pretty refreshing!

– Karen