Last weekend Brian and visited Victoria on Vancouver Island. We saw the impressive First Nations exhibit at the Museum of British Columbia and went for a few nice walks through town and by the sea.
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| Downtown Victoria |
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| Totem poles at the Royal BC Museum |
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We also went on a whale watching tour, which I enjoyed quite a bit. We saw a humpback whale and several sea lions and seals. This was my first time seeing a whale, and it was awesome.
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| Humpback Whale Fluke! Sploosh! |
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| Seals and Sealions |
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Victoria is British Columbia’s capitol and the location of the provincial government. While we were there, we took a tour of the Parliament building and learned about BC’s government, which, as an American, I find hilarious.
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| BC Parliament Building |
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| Tour guide dressed as architect Francis Rattenbury |
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Notes on the Canadian Government
- The queen of England is Canada’s head of state.
- The BC Parliament building has a very special door that only the queen and heads of state are permitted to use. We did not see a special door for the royal corgies.
- Since the queen is too busy to deal with Canada, a Governor General of Canada is appointed to serve as her representative (the queen’s understudy)
- The Governor General takes on all of the queen’s important duties in Canada including nodding his/her assent at all of the bills passed by Parliament while dressed in snappy clothing.
- Bills are not made into laws until nodded at.
- Since this system is so sensible, there is also a Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia to nod at the provincial laws of BC.
I’m not saying American government is better than Canadian government;the US government is quite dysfunctional at the moment. However, I find the queen quite amusing, and her role in Canadian government is even stranger to me.
Our biggest reason for heading to Vancouver Island was to meet up with friends and family. Unfortunately, we were not able to meet up with my mom and grandma, but we were able to see our friends Luke and Andrew who had a five hour layover from their cruise. They had just gotten engaged and Brian and I are hoping for a wedding ceremony conveniently located in Canada. It was good seeing our old friends and made us really miss our gang from Salt Lake City.
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| In front of downtown |
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| Seeing Luke and Andrew off |
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2 comments:
I actually did know that the Queen of England was the head of state of Canada. I did not know that she (or the Governor General of Canada) had the power of the nod. I want that job.
Ditto. Although, since I'm hoping to find a more meaningful job, I don't think that nodding is quite the right fit for me right now. Perhaps sometime in the future.
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