The Penthouse Suite

We spent the month of September in a condo just north of Beacon Hill Park. It was a nicely kept place, and well-decorated. It also gave us one more life experience -- I think it will be the only time in our lives that we will be able to say that we lived in a penthouse suite!

The best part about living at the condo was being right across from the park, but staying downtown on Douglas Street was a close second. We were just up the street from the Royal BC Museum, so we bought memberships and spent a few Saturday afternoons there, seeing the exhibits and watching IMAX films. Weekend mornings were a lot of fun for Mark and me. We would get up fairly early and go for a walk through Beacon Hill Park and down to the rocks at the ocean.


After checking to see which cruise ships were in, we would circle back through downtown to pick up a coffee for Mark. When we got back to the condo, the kids were sometimes just getting up.

Another advantage to living downtown was being able to walk to work. When I started working at the Queen's Printer building in the middle of September, I only had to walk five minutes to work, which meant that I was also able to come home for lunch if I wanted. Mark's office was a little farther, but he still only had a 15-minute walk. We were able to park the van for long stretches of time (one time nearly two weeks!) and feel good about lessening our "carbon footprint".

For most of the time that we were in the condo, we were waiting to take possession of our new house. That happened on September 27, but since we had paid for the condo for the month of October as well, we took some extra days to make the transition over to the house.

By the time we moved into our house, we had lived in two other areas of Victoria. That, combined with driving all over Victoria in search of a house to buy, meant that we have a good understanding of the geography of the area -- a good introduction to a new city!