Victoria, British Columbia

The last port on our cruise was Victoria, British Columbia.

The first thing I saw when I got off the ship was the Canadian flag.  Canada may not be very exotic, but we were in a different country.  Woot!

We had to figure out how to get from the dock into town.  My parents went and chatted with some taxi drivers and tour companies.  I let them figure it out.  I went straight to the big Victoria sign to take a super touristy picture.

Once we figured out how to get around, we booked a tour bus that would take us out to the Butterfly Garden and the Butchart Garden.

Zack didn't obey the rules on the bus.

The first place the bus dropped us off was the Butterfly Garden.  It was absolutely beautiful!  There were numerous kinds of butterflies.  There were flamingos, turtles, various other birds and billions of butterflies.  We took a million pictures but I'll just share a few.

It landed on me.  Robyn didn't have a chance to change the camera settings before it flew away.  So it's a little washed out but she got the shot.

Robyn was distressed about the one that landed on her.

After the Butterfly Garden, we headed to the Butchart Gardens.

The Butchart Gardens were stunning.  It was something that Robyn had really wanted to do, but I ended up enjoying it much more than I thought I would.

I loved these corridors made entirely of flowers.  I told Robyn this is a good place to take engagement pictures.  We should have known that 5 years ago.

We came around the corner and looked down on this beautiful sunken garden.

Robyn's job is always to take pictures of flowers.  She had her work cut out for her that day.

Robyn's parents had taken a picture of this globe long ago.  In Robyn's mind, this globe represents the Butchart Gardens.  Naturally, we had to get a picture.

This was a top secret window out to the boat harbor.

Every inch of the whole place was covered in flowers.

One of these is a statue, the other is me.  Can you tell the difference?

We had a great experience at the Butchart Garden.  Afterward, the tour bus took us back to the ship.  We still had a couple hours before we had to be back, but we were tired so we decided our time in Canada was done.

But there was one little thing that I really wanted to do.  Upon our original entry into Canada they didn't stamp my passport.  I really wanted it stamped.  So we went back into the Port of Entry to find someone who could help us out.

When we went in, there was no one manning the station.  I was dismayed, "What if someone sneaks into Canada?"  Robyn didn't think they were very worried about that.

Eventually we tracked someone down and told him we really wanted the stamp.

Success!

After accomplishing our mission we got back on the ship.  It was our last night on a cruise.  Don't worry.  Our adventures weren't over yet.  We still had some adventures planned in Seattle after our cruise ship landed.