24th - 26th July Nanaimo

Small town really, although they call themselves a city - 'The Harbour City' no less. Thought it may be fun as theres a bathtub race and fireworks and all sorts of shenenagians going on. Last night was a wonder! Today we got up late and headed into town to see all the partys going on for the Bathtub weekend. There were a few bands playing in the park and a fun fair for kids not much more. That night we went to the fireworks. Sat at on rocks at the edge of the water a couple of hundred feet away from where the fireworks were let off we had a pretty great view (much better than 4th in NewYork). The firwroks although not as spectacular as New York were lovely each different colour reflected in the calm water and there was no pain in the neck behind me giving commentary. What was really nice, sort of innocent, was all the cheers and whoops of delight at each new explosion - in New York everybodys too cool for that.
Sunday morning 11am the bathtub race. At first we were very dissapointed as we saw all these small boats speeding about the bay under motor power and they didn't look like bathtubs. We expected some kind of wacky races with people rowing in bathtubs. We took our seats, well we were here now, and on closer inspection, each boat did have a small bathtub on it with the driver sitting in it. That night thinking the victors and losers would all be out, and as it was my birthday, we got all dressed up to go downtown. When we asked at reception to get us a cab they were surprised we were going anywhere as most things are closed Sunday night. We went anyway and most places were closed but a nice wee restaurant The Modern was open. The waitresses opening line was 'Oh your all nicely dressed where are you going' we told her we thought there might be stuff going on - NO. We told her it was my birthday so she gave us free desert - OK. We left The Modern after a jug of Margerita and went into the ACME pub - but alas Yip Yip Coyote didn't server us and there was no sign of Roadrunner anywhere. On hearing it was my birthday they too gave us a freebee - luckily this time it was drink and very alcoholic. I think my lasting impression of Canada very nice people not a lot happening - maybe Victoria would be buzzier.