27 April, 2006 (Thursday)

Day in Victoria. Parliament house. Ogden Pt. Red Jacket nightclub.

Thursday, our day in Victoria
We didn't get out until well after midday, but once out spent the afternoon exploring the downtown area. We did part of a tour of Parliament House, but Sean and the girls started falling asleep during the description of Parliamentary Process (which personally I found quite interesting - British Columbia apparently only has one house, not the upper and lower like we do at home?). Madame Tassaud's Wax Museum was closed by the time we escaped, so we walked to Ogden Point. (Picture: Parliament House and the British Columbian coat of arms)


Approaching the point
Ogden Point sits on the corner of Victoria, providing some breathtaking views of the mainland. We walked along the promenade and had a closer look at the lighthouse. The tide was coming in, so we sat on the end of the promenade and watched the waves come in. (Picture: Out from the point to the mainland)

Robbyn had offered to take us out for a night in Victoria, but we had to watch the O.C. first. Sean plugged in the headphones, not wanting to deal with the continuity gap from Season 2, but the rest of us gathered on the sofas. Around 10:30 Robbyn's friend Katrina(?) arrived, but we didn't head out until close to midnight.


The Red Jacket
The Red Jacket had two sizeable lines when we arrived - a members line on the right and a normal plebs line on the left. There were about 40 people waiting in line when we joined, and this didn't change for the first 40 minutes. At first we stood in the members line. Emly started babbling randomly to some other girls in the line, collecting one girl's phone number and spieling a lot of creative fiction in the process. Then we moved to the plebs line when the bouncers warned us that the members line wasn't valid past 10:30pm. During the wait Emily complained that her bladder was full, so Robbyn took her around the corner to defile the church grounds. The flowers will never be the same, let alone the older gentleman who happened to be passing at the time. We then returned to the members line when we got sick of waiting in the plebs (although Emily had by this time built a rapport with a trio of guys, including one from Perth). At about 1am the bouncers relented and let pretty much everybody in. $6 covercharge for an hour. Bargain. (Picture: Ogden Point lighthouse)

Inside the floor was pumping; guys and gals writhed with abandon, while the bar area was packed out. The place had a nice enough atmosphere, mainly young 20-somethings out for a good night. I lost the girls before too long and got a feel for the club myself. I refound the gals on the dance floor - first spotting Robbyn's frizzy locks from afar. As I asked her where the others were at a stocky blond youth chucked me under my chin. I raised an eyebrow as he gave me a challenging look. Robbyn interceded, apparently some over-protective jock buddy of her boyfriend. Apparently he bought Robbyn and the gals drinks as an apology. Smart alec. (Picture: Inside the Red Jacket)

Promptly at 2am the club shut. Robbyn tried to find out about any after parties but nothing seemed to be going. Instead, we stood out the front of the club while Leah spat tobacco juice, Emily babbled and flirted with three English lads and Lauren, Sean and I watched the Victorian beautiful people pile out into their waiting Mercs. The drive home was just as adventure filled, filling up at MacDonalds ("Sorry, we're out of chicken burgers", "I'm sorry, but we are currently out of stock of that item"), we had to pull over for Emily to purge herself of her $7 bottle of wine. After I helped her wipe her mouth she kept on telling everybody in the car "It looked like maggots" - a waste of a good spaghetti bolognaise.