When we woke up on Thursday (3/5), it was raining. We had losely been talking about going on a hike that day, but due to the rain the others weren’t really sure anymore. That was when I put my foot down. I said: “I want to go hiking. I don’t mind the rain. If you want to stay in the city, that’s fine. But I’m going to the park.”

I guess that’s just what they needed to hear, because half an hour later all of us met up in the hostel lobby and walked to the bus stop. We were going to Goldstream Provincial Park.

It’s a small park about thirty kilometers from Victoria, with a couple of trails and Highway 1 going straigt through it. The trail we chose was narrow and went up and down the mountain, with huge trees and moss and ferns in the valleys and smaller pines and firs up on the higher ground. Once we got into the forest, the canopy gave us shelter from the rain – but it was still wet, and I was happy for my outfit consisting of the yellow rain jacket I got from Morena, rain trousers and Goretex shoes. Some of the others weren’t as lucky.

And I’m sorry if I’m boring you with all these pictures of trees and moss. The thousands shades of green just keep on amazing me. I am in awe of these trees. And I’ll probably keep on being amazed by the trees I see on this trip and taking photos like crazy and writing about them here. The amazing trees will probably just keep on coming until I reach Arizona, and that won’t be until the middle of July. So, get used to it.

Of course, I was always the last person in the group. Oh, this trail was amazing.

The end point of the trail was this approximately twenty-five meter high waterfall, called Niagra Falls. Not THE Niagra Falls, but pretty enough anyway.

On the way back on the much straighter trail to the bus, I met this beautiful little thing. A wild orchid! In cold Canada. I know it’s a rainforest, but still. I didn’t expect orchids too. This is such a cool place!

Once we reached the bus stop, the bus had just left and the next one was late. So when we finally reached the hostel, we were all wet and freezing and tired enogh to go to sleep right away. We had walked about ten kilometers through the pouring rain, you know. But we didn’t, though. We all had hot showers, and then we went to a nice restaurant and celebrated our last night in Victoria.

Today: Lying in the sun, listening to a podcast while the hens are picking in the dirt under the blossoming apple tree. I try to be efficient and update the blog quickly, but it’s just so hard with the sun shining from a shockingly blue sky and so many cute baby chicks to laugh at. I’m doing my best – but sometimes you’ve just got to lie in the sun and feel the grass against your bare skin too.

It feels as if summer has arrived here. How about where you are?

Wednesday evening, 2/5: Thinking it might rain tomorrow evening, my last night in Victoria, I took a late walk down to the water to catch the lights on the Parliament Building with my good camera. Because, sure, the rather pompous architecture of the Legislative Building of British Columbia is nice in the daylight – but it’s in the nighttime that it shows all it’s Victorian glory. With the lights showing off the very straight, neo-classical lines of the building, burning like Christmas decorations and reflected in the Pacific right below, you can do nothing but admire it. Seen like that, it’s easy to see why the islanders are proud of their capital.

Walking back along Government Street, under the spring green trees, I was overcome by this feeling. The crowns of the trees were cut into balls, and there was blinking light bulbs on the branches, now half hidden behind the newly opened leaves. The night was mild and there was a soft texture to the air, which must have been due to the ocean. Not crisp, but fresh.

The kind of feeling that inspires me to write, a kind of solemness akin to spirituality. For a place to inspire that feeling, it must be quite special. It is a great compliment. I like Victoria.

On Wednesday (2/5), we left the hostel all together in one big group and walked to Beacon Hill Park, the city park in Victoria. It is big, considering that Victoria is quite small, and it’s really well kept and pruned and cut. Beautiful, really. Not wild, like Stanley Park, but neat.

Pretty soon, though, we realised that we had totally different speeds. While the others were out on a brisk walk, I always looked for nice photos to take and could disappear into a bush without a word just to look at the tiny little flowers underneath. So eventually, when I imagined seeing irritated smiles on the other’s faces, we decided to split up. I’d continue with my slow explorations on my own, and then we’d meet up after lunch.

We might have arrived on the Island at just the right time. It’s spring, and everything is blooming. Everywhere.

The last part of the park, just down by the ocean, became more wild and unkept. There, I found this field of blue flowers and small oaks. Lovely spot.

On a sign by the field, I learned that this beautiful blue flower was called Great Camas and that it had been used by the First Nations on the island for many many years.

Down by the ocean, the wind was fresh and the coastline was made up of small beaches and flat rocks. And crazy amounts of driftwood. Like, sick crazy. I don’t understand where all that wood comes from. It’s like huge, white tree skeletons.

I made my way back to downtown Victoria by the waterside, and ended up eating an expensive fish n’ chips lunch at a place with floating houses and a family of seals that they fed, to keep them coming back. They are beautiful creatures, the seals, so fat but still amazingly graceful in the water.

The place where we had decided to meet up was in front of the Legislative Building. There she stands, Queen Victoria, all proud and serious. For some reason she fascinates me. I hear so many things about her that don’t really fit together. Her love for Prince Albert, the colonialization of Africa, her many years on the throne. I might have to find a biography about her. When I have the time. Anyway, the Legislative Building behind her is an interesting piece of architecture – I can’t really decide if it’s Victorian cool, or just over the top boastful. It looks English, though, more than anything else I’ve seen in Canada so far.

The reason for meeting up in front of the Legislative Building was because we wanted to catch the free tour. And really, it was even more pompous from the inside, with gold and a lot of colour everywhere. Coloured glass windows with strange Christian quotes and flags. The above photo is of the main entrance hall (which isn’t the actual entrance hall for most people, since the only person who is allowed to use the main entrance is the Queen, and the Chairman once a year, when the Legislative Assemely opens. For the rest of us, there’s a small side door). The flag is British Columbia’s.

It was nice, but nothing special, the building. I guess they all look more or less the same, these things. Walking around there, I kept thinking of the Riksdagshuset in Stockholm. It’s also got high ceilings and pillars and stone floors. The difference is that the one in Stockholm is so much bigger.

No, the most exciting thing about the tour was the tour guide. He told us stories about the architect of the building, apparently a twenty-three-year-old (or something, can’t remember) who won a competition and then through scheming and rumours managed to get the job of designing this very important building, even though he’d barely had a single commission before. It wasn’t so much the stories that the guide told, as the outfit he was wearing: a maroon suit with a white shirt and a big, striped bow tie. And glasses, the hipster kind. Adorable. A sight for sore eyes, if you’d excuse the klische.

Dinner was sallad, eaten in the hostel. And once I sat down in my bed, I couldn’t get out of it. Touristing is a tough occupation, don’t try to say anything else.

My love for libraries is not a secret. So, when I visit new cities, I always want to visit the public library, to have as a reference. A city with a good library can’t be bad, while a city with a bad one might not get along with me at all.

Vancouver has a good public library. It’s airy and big and has many coffee shops close by. (I presume the couple being photographed in front of the public library building are book lovers, just as me. I felt a kinship with them, somehow, and wish them everything good for their future lives together.)

Just to check the substance of the library, now that I felt so positively about the exterior, I went to the children’s section and found the following:

Well, I can do nothing but have respect for Vancouver now.

The public library in Victoria is much smaller and much more inconspicuous. It feels more crowded and full, not as much air, but still there’s an atmosphere there that made me stop by a shelf, pick a book at random and start reading. It’s a place where you want to stay and read, which is really all you can ask of a library. But, then again, creating that atmosphere is harder than it might seem. It isn’t only interior design. It’s also the feeling of many big reading experiences surrounding the place. And that requires devoted readers and library visitors.

So, yeah, British Columbia has got some real kick-ass libraries. Thumbs up for that!

Tuesday morning (1/5), Frida, Karin, Marit and I took the Skytrain to the bus to the ferry to Vancouver Island. I felt a little sad about leaving Vancouver, I could have stayed for atleast another week, easily, but time is usually something limited when you’re traveling. So, I left.

But coming to Vancouver Island felt really exciting too. It was actually one of the things that I’ve been looking forward to the most with this North America trip, the temperate rainforests on Vancouver Island. So, of coarse, I couldn’t wait to get the opportunity to put my hiking boots on and go out socializing with the trees.

But first I had to get to know Victoria. The first thing the girls did when we arrived at our hostel was to change into their runnng clothes and go for a jog. Well, I just couldn’t get myself to tag along, running might be the most boring thing I know. So instead, I decided to go out and explore a piece of the city by myself.

Victoria is the capital of British Columbia and the oldest town on the Canadian west coast. They were celebrating their 150th birthday this year, which is kind of a joke for a European as myself. But I must admit that for being a Canadian city, Victoria felt unusually old and cozy – and there wasn’t a single skyscraper.

Instead, most of the houses were only a couple of stories high, beautifully built and some even painted in quirky colours.

Bastion Square, just off Government Street, has this beautiful tree – and for you who might have missed it: I love trees. Of all shapes and sizes. But maybe these kinds of pruned city trees most of all. They fascinate me. (There is this square in front of the Royal Engineering Collage, KTH, in Stockholm with these beautiful trees pruned into squares that, especially in spring, make such good tree models. I can’t count the number of photos that I’ve taken there.)

But Victoria is not only cute and touristy. It’s also got these rough back alleys, which makes it feel more dynamic and alive than many other cute tourist towns that I’ve visited. There are actually people living here. A few of the houses were made out of red brick. But my partiality to red brick I’ve already told you about.

There’s even street art in Victoria. Beautiful.

Kanada’s oldest Chinatown is in Victoria. It isn’t really that much to brag about, it isn’t much more than one street – but then again, that street has gone all in. Red lantens, red lamp posts, Chinese restaurants, cherry trees, even the Gate of Harmonious Interest, all decorated and Chinesey. It was concentrated and cute.

One thing that surprised me in Victoria, though, was the amount of homeless people on the streets. They were everywhere. Apparently, they come here because it’s got the mildest climate in Canada, rarely getting temperatures below zero even in the middle of winter. So, they don’t freeze as much – but instead, it’s humid and they get tuberculosis. It’s an awful catch-22 situation.

As if wanting to create a new tradition, I was late getting back to the hostel. But the girls were waiting for me, and we had a lovely pasta dinner together in the snug hostel kitchen.

Walking along the water in Stanley Park, I was reminded of the walk Kirke, her dog Zorro and I usually make, maybe one Sunday every other month, around Djurgården in Stockholm. It starts out among old, cute houses, but continues down to the water and eventually ends up in a forest mainly consisting of oaks. It is a beautiful walk.

And this train of thought made me realise that Vancouver and Stockholm actually have quite a few similarities. There is the ocean that makes it’s way so far into the city, there’s the universities with their green campuses and the big park. Because, Stockhlm has a big national city park as it’s huge green lung too. And many other green areas.

Stockholm is about six hundred years older than Vancouver, but then again, being old is not always a virtue. There are many areas in Stockholm that are so extremely uncharming, while there’s a sense of style to most of the buildings in Vancouver, despite them being new and modern. Both cities are really nice and easy to take walks in, and you can get to most of the important places by foot. Or by public transportation.

Overall, they are both cities that I really like and if I had the opportunity, Vancouver is certainly a city I could live in. But, as Frida and I concluded during our last evening walk in Edmonton: there’s no place like Stockholm. We both have these plans of working abroad, traveling, being citizens of the world. But we also both want to eventually end up in Stockholm. That’s something I’m slightly blind to in my everyday life, but it becomes so clear when I’m traveling. Vancouver is this super cool, beautiful city that I fell totally in love with – but still it can’t beat Stockholm.

Rushing into the fast food restaurant where Frida, Karin and Marit were waiting for me, hurriedly starting to tell the story about the sweet old man in the Victorian museum as an excuse for me being late, I was struck by how shrill my voice sounded.

I had been speaking and hearing only English (and far too much German for my taste) for more than five weeks. The only Swedish that I had come in contact with was in the form text and when I sang for the horses.

So, hearing myself speak for those first fifteen minutes felt so utterly strange. Speaking Swedish, I seemed to have a higher pitch to my voice, and I spoke so much faster and, just generally, so much more. It’s like I am another person.

The English me speaks with a deep voice, she’s slow and thoughtful and careful with her articulation. The Swedish me is like a geysir, constantly bubbling over with words and crazy ideas and associations and anecdotes. The Finnish me is probably still stuck somewhere between nineth grade and high school. And the people who know me in one tounge, would probably not recognize me in another at first. I feel slightly confused myself.

In anticipation of the next part of the fairytale that I’ve been writing for her future daughters. The fairytale about Princess Forget-Me-Not, a girl put away and forgotten in an enchanted garden.

Flowers found in a garden, vedged between two skyscrapers in downtown Vancouver.

I’ve never been very fond of dogs. Not that I dislike them. I’ve just never cared that much. I don’t think I ever really wanted a dog as a kid. I did take care of my neighbour’s labrador in the afternoons when I was ten or so, took it for walks in the forest. And we had a crazy dog, Sixten, who kind of came with the house that we moved into in Tanzania, but he wasn’t really a pet. He lived in the garden and hadn’t been handled right as a puppy, so he was half wild, half craving so much love and attention that he wouldn’t let us sit on the verandah without barking and whining for us to open the verandah gate for him and let him in. Even though he had been running around in the monsoon mud and would leave red paw marks all over the white-and-black-checkered tile floor. Not really a representative first dog experience.

But after that, I haven’t really mixed much with dogs. I have an aunt who’s always had dogs, and so has an uncle of mine too. Kirke’s got Zorro and there are always loads of dogs running around in stables – but I’ve never really cared much. I’m not the kind who goes all crazy and gooey-eyed at the sight of dogs and babies. I’m more of a horse person. Horses are more independent, more careful, not as easily befriended. Maybe you could say, more like me – or then I just can’t handle the faithful and unquestioning love that dogs give away so freely. I don’t know.

But I must admit, something happened to me at Time Out Farms. With all those dogs, four of them, sometimes even six, I got used to having them around. The calmness of old Sally, the energy of little Maggie, the utter happiness of Remy and the dark, kind of hollow barks of Sierra. And the all-over-the-place Golden Retriever Georgie and skittish Jackson, Diane’s kids dogs that came to stay when their owners went away on holiday. It was total chaos with all those dogs around, but without realising it, I started to like always having someone to play or cuddle with. The fact that there was always someone who would appreciate you, even if it’s just because you scratch them in precisely the right spot behind their ear. Dogs are so generous and honest. If you are good to them, they love you. It’s as easy as that. Sometimes I wish other relationships could be as uncomplicated.

So now, a few weeks after leaving the farm, I still catch myself missing the dogs. I meet a dog in the street in Vancouver or on a trail in Ucluelet, and have to control myself to not just run up to it and start hugging it. You never know with stranger’s dogs, they might bite – but I just miss Diane’s dogs so. Totally unexpectedly.

But then again, who wouldn’t miss this little cutie pie, the poodle Remy. Maybe I’m not that strange, after all.