After very little sleep and an early morning, the whole London Poetry Slam team arrived at the London Airport excited to embark on this crazy adventure. We got a late start because of the fog, but arrived in Calgary in plenty of time for our second flight. The day was filled with lots of naps on Kyra’s part and lots of hilarious antics, excitement, and inappropriate public conversation topics.

We settled into our awesome suite at the Best Western Carlton Plaza in the heart beautiful downtown Victoria and set out to explore the city and get some groceries. While Char and Sly got a tour of the city from Victoria hometowner Kristy Westendorp, Kyra and I went on our own “homemade” tour armed with the handy map from the front desk and eventually ended up at the Big Rock Showdown at the Victoria Event Centre, where most of the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word events will be happening.

The Showdown included 7 Victoria artists who got 7 minutes each to show us their stuff, with a $100 audience-voted prize. We got treated to some miming, some stand-up, some improv, some improv audience-included rap, some indie music, and some very creepy but sort of funny improv from a baby lamb. It was an almost equally entertaining and creepy evening, but lovely to see/sit with friends Missie Peters and Skawt Jonzz, members of the Vic slam team, Steven Thompson, CFSW Festival Director, and Sasha Prynn, Artist Liaison for the festival.

Highlights for Sunday include: arriving to our hotel room to a vase of flowers from Moira, a friend from London who made the trip out here to support the team (and see Victoria); Kyra deciding that she will no longer be referring to any of us by our given names, but instead by our stage/nicknames for the rest of the week; the absolutely hilarious comedic singer/songwriter who closed the show (whose name I’ve forgotten, but I’ll find it) with a song about how she wants to marry George Stromboulopoulos; Kyra’s dance moves; and winning a hoodie at the show last night for suggesting “milking a cow” to the improv performer on stage.

More updates to come (hopefully daily-ish) with photos to boot! Stay tuned!