Tourists

This Saturday morning crews are on site to take down the forms from the six foot thick slab that will be the support for the whole building. That's one way to get rid of a hangover from Friday night. Now that the crane is up things are supposed to go a lot faster but there's still a fair amount of blasting to be done. I thought that six foot thick slab was massive but it's small potatoes compared to the one in San Diego they've posted in the office here which took a 258 vehicle "truck ballet" over a period of ten hours to pour ten feet of concrete. The prices of the condo units on that project are pretty massive, too...starting at 800k going up to 12 million. I moved away from San Diego 40 years ago this year and I have a soft spot in my heart for the place. Can't remember the geography very well so I couldn't make out exactly where the project was being built. The name 'Bayside' suggests Mission Bay, one of my favourite SD locales, but there was no light rail at that time.
Every winter around the end of November I get a strong craving to escape to Mission Bay until April. That would have been feasible 20 years ago when those little cottages could be had for $100 a week but if condos now cost 12mill I guess those days are over. In the summer and early fall I much prefer Victoria weather and it looks like summer has arrived at last. Victoria has perfect summers: warm sun and a cool breeze with very few hot nights. The summer sky at twilight reminds me of a line in a Hank Williams song: Have you ever seen a falling star light up a purple sky. The sky isn't exactly purple but somehow has a purplish character to it that I love to see. The word 'gloaming' comes to mind, that scotch word related to glamour which originally had supernatural connotations. The horizon glows with a halo above it until 10 or 11 in early summer. I have seen such a purple sky change within minutes to black clouds and torrential rain. Fifteen minutes later it's all over but the tourists are in their hotel rooms watching TV and won't venture out again. Too bad for them. They miss out on that fresh smell rain always leaves behind when it soaks our dry earth. Victoria has a mostly stony soil and it doesn't take long for the grass to dry out and turn brown.
For the first time in many many years I won't be hustling for that tourist buck. A lot of Victorians complain about tourists but as a cab driver I'll take a polite and interested American tourist over a drunken Canadian university student any day. Canadians in the 'hospitality' trades delight in telling stories about dumb questions American tourists ask but in fact I think Americans are quite well informed. There are exceptions. Black Americans especially have some difficulty comprehending the idea that Canada is a separate country.
Canadian tourists in the US have a reputation too...for being cheapskates. These would be the mythical snowbirds who delight in telling their friends back home about how little they paid for etc, etc. It's a little hard to understand how a country that spends almost nothing on its army can still have higher taxes than Americans but so it is. Part of the cheapskate reputation Canadians have relates to their reluctance to tip. There's no doubt that Americans are the best tippers but I can't complain about Canadians. Some tip, some don't. Teachers, who seem to think everyone is out to cheat them, are the worst. In fact, they might take it into their heads that you've taken them by the infamous 'scenic route' and refuse to pay the full fare.
Australians don't tip either if they've never spent any time out of their own country because tips are included in the price there. Some people think this is a good system, but think about it. When the customer has control over a good portion of what a server earns then that server has a good incentive to give good service. When the gratuity is spread evenly among the staff regardless of the quality of the service then shirkers are rewarded as much as good workers .
You don't see as many Japanese now as in years past. I'm not sure why that is, but you can't expect a tip from a Japanese either. For one thing, they don't like to travel alone, only in groups. So the tips are usually rolled into the tour price and the tour operator wouldn't think of sharing tips with a cab driver. There was one restaurant in town that used to specialize in Japanese tours. They would order anywhere from 5 to a dozen cabs to the hotel where we would usually have to wait fifteen or twenty minutes to take the customers to the restaurant. It was a short trip for which we were paid a flat rate which was a little less than the meter rate. And the Japanese tourists were advised not to tip the cab driver. You can imagine how enthusiastic the drivers were about servicing that account. When I heard the radio message 'car 18 first car to blah blah' I would suddenly discover I already had a fare. The restaurant went under a few years ago, not to be missed by me.
They say that tourism has gone down over the last few years, what with the more stringent border security and some other factors, but cruise ship traffic increases every year. Most ships only come in for a few hours but the tour buses, the horse buggies, the pedicabs, antique cars and just about every other possible conveyance are lined up waiting for them on shore like starving vultures. Yeah, that includes taxis.
People who drive downtown during the tourist season usually complain most about the buggies. They move pretty slow it's true but at least they make a pleasant clip clop sound, and the residue they leave behind is good for gardens. I don't mind barnyard smells, 'that familiar oaken reek of horse piss." You can't really get mad at a horse because a horse is just a horse, a dumb animal who isn't there on his own volition. (I don't think there is any cruelty in it. These breeds of horses have to work to stay healthy, and they seem to enjoy being out and about just like dogs and people)
They don't bother me in the slightest now but it was the Kabuki pedicabs that used to get my goat the way they were always cutting in front of me and blocking lanes. And then there are the buses, endless streams of buses, spewing noise and diesel fumes. Since the cruise ships can't come into the Inner Harbour due to their size, they use the docks at Ogden Point in James Bay. So to get downtown the cruise ship passengers, most of whom are not physically able to do the 15 minute walk into town, usually take one of the many buses waiting to relieve them of their money.
I meant to take a few pictures of the cruise ships last night. They are quite impressive in the dusk lined up with their lights blazing. But circumstances beyond...
And today those purple skies have been replaced by grey clouds.