Victoria adventures 06

On Wednesday, I went to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Not my first time going up there, but it's the first time bothering to take the bus - I've been very tired lately and I just couldn't be arsed to walk it. ;V

One of the feature exhibits, which happened to be my favourite, was on Asian inkwork (mostly Chinese and Japanese). Very cool, some really beautiful stuff there. Super glad I went. Some of them had poetry incorporated into the inkwork, and there were translations to go along with them - I appreciated that.

They also had a small exhibition of prints by Albrecht Dürer. Fascinating stuff. So detailed! There were magnifying glasses available to take closer looks. Necessary, as some of them were quite small.

Anyway. In the evening there was the thing that I came to Victoria for... the Pacific Opera Victoria performance of Tosca!

I've never seen an in-person opera performance of this level; my previous experiences were all small-scale productions by small companies. So, this was a real treat.

The performance was amazing! The singing, the costuming, the everything. I was already familiar with the story as I've seen a recorded version, but in-person was so much better. I had a great seat, too. (And actually remembered my glasses this time, hooray). 100/10, no notes.

One thing I loved that I didn't remember from the recorded version was that there are some moments that have great comedic timing. Like yeah, sure, it's a tragedy, but in the earlier parts there's the stuff like Mario going in for a smooch and Tosca being like "Not in front of the Madonna", haha.

And now I'm like... turning over the general premise of this opera in my head, trying to shove certain favourite characters into it. You know, "The enemy pressures the protagonist to sleep with him in exchange for the love interest's freedom while the love interest is tortured in a nearby room" dealio. It's a little challenging to make anything a 1:1 fit, but man is it fun.

Anyway, the opera was lovely. I'm glad that I made the decision to come see it in person; very good decision. I could see myself doing so again; we'll have to see what comes up in the future.

Victoria adventures 07

So, today was my last day in Victoria.

I took the bus down to the Oak Bay area. I visited an art gallery, poked around some little shops, and (unsuccessfully) tried some geocaching. I've never been in that area before, so it was a little bit different. "Enrichment", I suppose one could say. Or at least getting myself more used to the bus system.

Then I headed back downtown, poked around some other little art galleries, and then decided to call it a day.

Heading back home tomorrow. Kind of wish I'd booked a bit more time off so I could spend it at home, but that's how it goes. ;V It was nice to get out of Fort Mac and do some stuff, at least. (And also I managed to finish a fic draft! So that's something.)