Photo by Sarah Allan (Photo Editor)
A student’s love life can be pretty rough. It’s not easy to woo someone you fancy, or to keep things spicy with your long-time partner, without spending a little money. Here are a few inexpensive dates to heat your relationship up to a boil or to keep things sizzling.
Duck Feeding
Let’s be honest here. The best date is one that made you laugh with each other. And feeding the quackers at Beacon Hill Park will do the job. The trick is to bring duck feed. Sometimes, this can be hard to track down (hot tip: Hotel Grand Pacific has duck feed—you just have to ask), but thawed frozen peas work too. If you and your date stand close together and generously sprinkle the duck-chow, I guarantee you will have so many ducks at your feet that you will not be able to see the grass. Also, their little quacks are so cute. Ladies love quacks.
Pizza
I would never advise anybody to do this if it weren’t for this amazing deal. My jaw embarrassingly dropped when I found this out, but guess what? Margherita Pizzas (full sized, people!) are only eight dollars at Famoso’s on Mondays. This is the perfect way to make a Monday worthwhile. Grab a window seat, enjoy some cheap yet mouth-watering handmade pizza, and pick out some gelato for dessert. Every single flavour is almost-but-not-quite better than your pizza. Plus, the lighting in there is so romantic, even I felt charmed—and I was by myself.
Disposable Camera
I created this date a couple weekends ago and it’s now my favourite thing, ever. Without telling your date, buy a ten-dollar disposable camera. Once you meet up at an outdoor destination, you tell your date your mission for the afternoon: use every exposure. Now you’ve both got a challenge to focus on, and it gives you a chance to bring out your goofy and spontaneous sides. These photos can be as innocent and hilarious or as steamy as you so choose. That night, get them developed; it’s only about 10 bucks and takes a couple hours. It’s an awesome surprise to be able to show them all the pictures you took a few days later instead of being able to see them immediately (“Oh, my eye looks lazy—let’s take another one!”) on your iPhone.
Ghostly Walks
On Fridays and Saturdays, for $13 (if you’re a student), you can walk around downtown Victoria and hear stories of the city’s ghost scene. Doesn’t sound romantic? It’s all of the fun of watching a scary movie together, except you’re holding hands in the crisp air and able to actually talk. It’s neat because even if you don’t believe in paranormal beings, every story is based on completely true histories of murders and hangings. I’ve only been once, and I went with my mom—trust me, you’re going to be glad you have a hottie by your side to huddle into when it gets a little freaky.
The Bug Zoo
The Bug Zoo! Oh, The Bug Zoo. The only time I’ve cried on a date. For 10 dollars each, you can discover a lot about each other. For example, when your tour guide asks who would like to hold the tarantula and your date raises his/her hand, you will know you’ve got a daredevil on your hands. Or, if you happen to vomit in your mouth when the tour guide is teaching you about cockroaches, it will finally be revealed that you have an overly active gag reflex and hate bugs (as was the case with me). And, if you decide to team up together to hold a stick-bug the length of your forearm, you will know you gotta put a ring on it.
