Leaving behind the ancient charm of Rome, we boarded our flight to Canada for the next leg of our journey. It’s wedding season folks! We were flying back to Vancouver Island just in time for my friend Monica’s wedding.
We were honestly so excited to be leaving Europe behind. As incredible as some of the places we’ve visited were, we needed a break from moving around and were looking forward to a few weeks of staying in one place at my sister Nicola and her boyfriend Chad’s apartment in Victoria, BC.
My parents, Mark and Cheryl, who live just outside Calgary, weren’t going to be able to make it out to Victoria during my visit, but by a huge stroke of luck, the flights we bought happened to have a 7-hour layover in Calgary, giving us time to visit before our final flight to Victoria!
The airport experience in Rome was seriously unparalleled. It had the smoothest security and immigration process ever: you can bring full bottles of water, and you don’t need to take anything out of your bag (laptops, liquids, etc), and even if it gets flagged they don’t need you to open it. They have a full photo of everything in the bag and they can just click on it and observe on the screen. Immigration just needed us to scan our passports on a machine, with no human contact. So fast! The only problem is, now that we know this tech exists we’re going to want it all the time.
We landed in Calgary, and my parents were waiting to whisk us back to their house for a nice home-cooked dinner. We filled them in on our journey so far and made plans to see them in a couple of months in Mexico. It was such an ideal way to spend a long layover!
They drove us back to the airport in time to go through the incredibly annoying Canadian airport security. It was a quick turnaround from Rome.
Arriving in Victoria after midnight, my sister Nicola was there to pick us up and shuttle us back to her house; our new home base for the next few weeks. In another wild stroke of luck, Nicola’s work was under renovation on the exact dates we were visiting, leaving us lots of time to hang out!
Monica and Jordan’s wedding was just one day after we landed, and it wasn’t just a ceremony and reception. They had also arranged for people to camp out on the property after the wedding, which we thought was the cutest idea! We brought camping supplies provided by Nicola and her friends and headed down.
We were quite jet-lagged driving to the venue (we woke up at 4am and couldn’t fall back asleep that morning), so we stopped for a couple of redbulls which saved us big time.
It was the perfect day for a wedding, with beautiful blue skies but not too hot. This is the first of my close high school friends to get married, so it was so special to be there! But she’s only 29?! What in the child bride??!
The ceremony was beautiful — and very them — with the vows filled with endearing quirks and heartfelt moments, young toddlers giggling around their legs, and eagles soaring above. They had their (and my) friend Rosie sing while they were signing their marriage license. And just like that, my friend was married!
It all went so perfectly, and led us into cocktail hour. While the bridal parties went off to take pictures, we were directed to an area set up with lawn games, charcuterie boards, and delicious cocktails.
Wini met some of my friends on our visit to Canada last year, but I got to introduce her to more of my friends from high school/Victoria. It was so fun catching up with everyone, and the weather couldn’t have been better!
For dinner, we got placed at what Monica dubbed the ‘Chaos Table’, with Rosie, Spencer, Rachel, and Joel. It was such a fun time! They had a game where we had to unscramble cut-up pictures and glue them to a piece of paper, and the order in which the tables finished their puzzle determined the order in which we ate dinner. We got ours done pretty fast, so we got quick access to the delicious food truck tacos!
As we ate they had their friends and family do speeches, and Monica’s siblings performed a sweet song. We noticed the photographer left during cocktail hour so we whipped out ours to get some shots.
Then, it was time to dance!!! We spent the rest of the night on the dance floor having the time of our lives.
The music cut off just after midnight, and we were able to stumble back to our tent for bed.
The next morning we got up and felt pretty good. Monica’s parents had a breakfast feast from True Grain Bread (the best bakery on the island!), and we spent the morning reminiscing on the night before with everyone who camped.
We made the trip back towards Victoria, stopping at Bright Angel Park to go on a little walk with my bff Deanna, her boyfriend Clement, and their little ball of sunshine Bivvy!!!
The next day, we joined Deanna, Clem, and the Bivinator at Goldstream Park in the hopes of seeing the salmon run — in autumn, salmon swim back up the rivers they were born in to lay eggs and then die (oop).
It is honestly so unpleasant to visit the salmon run if you go too late in the season because there are so many rotting salmon corpses that it just smells putrid. But this was supposed to be the beginning of the run so I reluctantly agreed to go. However, it turned out to be a little too early. The ‘stream’ was still bone dry so that was a bit of a fail, but I’ll take no salmons over rotting salmon carcasses any day!
We spent another few lazy days at Nicola and Chad’s being total couch potatoes, getting re-traumatized by Will Shuester on Glee, and bonding with Nicola’s cat Anchovy who Wini has a very tumultuous relationship with (Wini pretends to hate Anchovy, and Anchovy is obsessed with Wini, so they’re always antagonizing each other).
A few days later, we had a fun adventure planned. Monica and Jordan’s wedding activities weren’t over yet — they had organized a ‘group honeymoon’ camping trip up in Strathcona Provincial Park! We loaded up Nicola’s car and headed up to the campsite, about 4.5 hours away.
It was a wonderful, wholesome couple days with the bride and groom, and their families and friends. We did NOT get the memo on what camping looks like these days though — her parents had a full boxspring for their inflatable mattress, and the meals they had were gourmet-level! Meanwhile, Wini and I were heating up Campbell’s soup and eating straight from the pot like the rugged woodsmen we are.
Monica also kindly lent me some extra blankies and jackets for warmth, because, despite being Canadian, I was not made for the arctic conditions of Vancouver Island in September!
This was made even more evident when Monica and her insane friends stripped down to their bathing suits and jumped into the freezing lake water. Truly unhinged behaviour.
The next day, we did a trip to the nearby Myra Falls for a little hike. The hike was beautiful but a bunch of people jumped in for a swim, which was even more unsound behaviour because the water was even colder there than the lake. I can’t with these people anymore.
We had another nice night around the campfire, and I finally found the right amount of warmth I needed to sleep through the night. I only need socks, leggings, sweatpants, a turtle neck, 2 sweatshirts, a toque, a sleeping bag, a blankie inside the sleeping bag, 2 blankies on top of the sleeping bag, and snuggles. Easy enough!
Monica and Jordan still had a few more days of their group honeymoon, but we had to head back up island, so we packed up and said our goodbyes.
It was Nicola’s birthday, so we had to leave early in order to get back to Vic in time for birthday brunch with her friends Cody and Dariel. Birthday squad!
After brunch, we had to get home to re-pack our bags, because it was time for ‘Sibs Weekend’. We had booked a cute log cabin near the ocean in Sooke (about 50 minutes from Victoria), and planned a little getaway with Nicola, Chad, and my brother, Adam, his girlfriend Keaton, and their two dogs Lou and Henry.
The cabin was amazing! We had a nice evening hot tubbing, and catching up with Adam and Keaton in front of the wood fireplace.
The next morning, Chad jumped into action to make a delicious French toast breakfast for everyone. We spent the morning lounging and then walked down the street to the beach in the afternoon.
It was a relaxing day, skipping rocks, throwing sticks for the dogs, and taking some cute family and group photos by the ocean.
On the way back, we ran into Cody and Dariel who were just arriving to spend the evening with us! Perfect timing.
Wini and I were in charge of dinner, and we planned a ‘Thanksgiving-esque’ meal since we’d be missing both Canadian and American Thanksgivings this year. We had a delicious feast of roast rosemary garlic chicken (courtesy of Dougan Farms — thanks Deanna), garlic mashed potatoes, gravy, and salad.
We had another fun night, hearing stories from Nicola and her friend’s road trip to California, keeping warm by the fire, and convincing everyone to download BeReal. We’re influencers!
The next morning Adam and Keaton made the deranged decision to jump in the ocean (I’m truly terrified by these people). When they came back from their polar plunge they whipped together breakfast: breakfast potato stir-fry, with garlic bread. We’ve been eating like kings this trip!
Adam and Keaton had to head back to Revelstoke (a 10+ hour trip), so we said goodbye to them. I’m so thankful they made the long journey out to join us! We packed up our stuff and headed back to Nicola’s house.
Our next few days weeks in Victoria unfolded in a haze of lazy days, nonstop Glee marathons, and eating the delicious food prepared by either Chef Wini or Chef Chad. It was a war to see who was superior in the kitchen, but Nicola and I were the real winners heheh. We didn’t feel so bad being lardy couch potatoes, because we had crammed so much into July and August that we could barely stand.
On our last day in Victoria we planned a fun little dinner party with Nicola, Chad, and Dariel; hand-making the pasta and tiramisu recipes we had learned on our last day in Rome.
We did what we learned in Italy, making the tiramisu first so it could set while we made the pasta.
It turned out way harder to flatten out the pasta with our makeshift rolling pins than it was with the proper equipment and the help of an instructor in Italy, but we made it work!
Chad made an unreal carbonara sauce and an arrabbiata sauce for us to choose from, as well as homemade focaccia, which Nicola decorated. YUM! We finished off with our tiramisu. It was such a fun night, and although our pasta maybe wasn’t as perfect as the one we made in Rome, it made up for it in taste!
The next day, Chad drove us off at the ferry (thank you!!), and we made our way through Vancouver to my grandma’s new place in Port Coquitlam. We had a wonderful couple of days visiting with her, going on walks and outings, listening to stories about her childhood, and catching up with my Uncle Bob who stopped by. It was the perfect way to wrap up our Canadian chapter.
On our final morning, we woke up at 3am to catch our early morning flight to DC for Wini’s friend Karen’s wedding!
