Day 21 (Tofino to Victoria)

After partying into the wee hours of the morning, I was in no hurry to get out of bed, neither was anyone else in my room.  I did, however, need to get to Victoria, to meet Joel, who is my CouchSurfing host.  

https://www.couchsurfing.org/ is a site set up for international travelers, on  a budget, looking for hosts that offer a couch or bed (gratis).  I had sent out 3 requests the day before, so checked my email when I got up, and lo and behold, I had an 'accept' from Joel.

Here's one of my roomates, Jeltje, from the Netherlands, jamming some Horse With No Name, by America, as I'm getting ready to hit the road...goodby Tofino, it's been fun, but on to Victoria!

This is my CouchSurfing host, Joel, from the Philipines, who was an amazing host.  He met me at his condo building, introduced me to his 2 Brazilian roomates, then later in the evening, 2 other Philipino friends arrived with Tita, a surragote mother to all these guys, and she proceeded to cook the most amazing Philipino BBQ!  They treated me as one of their own.  It was a great evening of fun!

The next morning, I had a few hours to burn, so Joel offered to show me around Victoria.  First stop was Tim Hornton's!  All travelers to Canada, have to have their Tim Horton's indoctrination.  I had a Latte and an oatmeal...delicious!

After Tim Horton's it was off to see some of the city.  Here is Craigdarroch Castle, built by an early coal pioneer...

After the castle it was down to see the 'floating city'.  This is an eclectic collection of floating houses in a marina.  Like a little city, these homes are really neat...here's one of the 'neighborhood streets'...

All of the homes have different themes, pretty cool lifesyle, here's a couple of my favorites...

The murals on these are pretty cool...

Note the nice lady on the balcony...

These are called harbor seals, as they stay in the harbor, always looking for handouts from the tourists.

I'd say they do pretty good for themselves...

Behind me is the Washington coastline, 26 miles away...

This is Chris, Joel, Edward, and your's truly.  Chris and Edward are Princess Cruise employees, were on a couple hour leave from the Star Princess, and here we are taking them back to the ship, after our BBQ...it was great meeting and hanging out with these guys...thank you so much Joel for hosting me!

After dropping off Chris and Edward, it was back to Joel's, for a good night's sleep, then I'll hook up with my ADVrider.com, tentspace host, Dave.  I've 2 more days to spend in Victoria and Dave, who I met online on the ADVrider.com boards, will be my host.