The longest day

Thank God for GPS... I don't know how Karin would have made it through this tour without one, save for some serious delays. We speed on the 5 and get to Anacortes in less than 2 hours! Queued for the ferry with the van and I worried about Karin the whole way over on her 2 measily hours of sleep. I was impressed that the boys were ready and waiting for us at "Call Hour" or whatever industry term is used. I half expected them to be bratty musicians who loved to party. But on average they were pretty normal guys who loved penis and poop jokes - they just had British accents and wore skinny-leg jeans which I'll never understand about British people - it looks SO SILLY!

The morning was really chilly on the ferry to Victoria and the group had foregone dinner the night before so they were really tired and hungry. Karin more so though because she is doing all the driving on top of taking care of the band's needs and contracts and all. It seems a really thankless job - even more so than mine! We have a lot of fun on the ferry though as we all hadn't been on one in a while. Lots of "Titanic" impressions and silliness on deck.

Then we go inside for some "brekkie" - I am thankful for the few British slangs I've learned recently as they were ALL used within the first hour of meeting the boys. "brekkie" for Karin and Ben involves beer. We were so delusional from lack of sleep that we had a non-stop laugh about Karin's mixture of yogurt and beer for breakfast. I was seriously convinced the concoction would explode in her stomach and the boys would force me into servitude for the rest of their tour if she perished.

The views were fantastic - from the moody & misty early morning to the serene & sunny late morning. But no killer whales! Where the F are they?! Damn orcas.. The BC ferry system is really well organized, it not taking more than 10 minutes to get all the cars on or off. As we had just spent almost 3 hours on the ferry, all parties were jonesing for a ciggie by then, so we stopped off for a quick smoke and the boys wanted to skim stones as there was water EVERYWHERE you looked.

When we get to the Dalton hotel at 11am, I am praying they will let us check in early so we can all nap for a bit before possibly doing some sightseeing or getting ready for the concert. The rooms weren't ready though and we were given the awful answer of "it'll be ready at 3pm". NO SHIT it'll be ready by 3pm, that's our guaranteed check-in time! This was the first evidence of customer service in Canada being shaky at best.

In my head I'm ready to go to Hatley Castle - otherwise known as the X-MEN mansion! =) How cool is that - I am so excited!! I get ready and put on a little dress and little heels and they want to walk around Victoria - um.. no thanks I think I'll stay behind and see if I can get them to get us a room early. And I do just that - not an hour after they leave! But they won't let me check in because the rooms are under Karin's name! Agghh - these Dalton Hotel people are really working my last nerve.

They come back and we check in and everyone crashes HARD. After sleeping 2 more hours, Karin and I wake up at 3:30pm and Karin is sweet enough to attempt the drive to Hatley Castle but the traffic is so horrendous we have to turn around as the boys need to get to the concert hall at 5 for "load-in" or "sound-check" or something. Wow, I've never seen a concert hall before the crowd gets in! It's interesting and it still smells of last night's beer and lechery.

The one thing that I wanted to do during this trip was to see Hatley Castle so I check and find out that the gardens are open until 8pm. Karin offers me the keys to the van but I'm in flippin' Canada and I'd rather spend a hundred bucks on taxis than worry about getting into an accident or getting lost, even with the Tom-Tom. I hate driving in places I don't know (unless it's seriously deserted) as I'll admit I'm not the best driver.

I return to the hotel in a jiff and off in a cab I go!