Toronto travelogue: not just baseball

One day this past winter, which was a particularly brutal one, my friend Danielle and I were chatting, me in Portland and her in Calgary. Danielle is a very enthusiastic traveler and has been all over the world. In 2011 she expressed an interest in seeing Boston, so I offered to play tour guide, and of course the tour included a Red Sox game. Interestingly, the visiting team was the Toronto Blue Jays and the promotion was Nova Scotia Day, both of which were appropriate because Danielle is Canadian and we met at a French immersion program in Nova Scotia. Back to the chat this past winter: at the point of this particular chat, I must have been fed up with winter and missing baseball, because I asked her completely on the spur of the moment if she would be interested in seeing the Sox and Jays in Toronto this summer. Her immediate response: "YES!!!" So we settled on the July series, I made my reservations, and she made hers. And when my alarm went off at 3:45 a.m. on Tuesday 7/22, I made my way to the Portland bus station and to Boston.

I spent all my bus time, wait time at the airport, and time in the air learning about Toronto. Before the morning of the trip, I knew almost nothing about Toronto. The limit of my knowledge was that it's the largest city in Canada; the Toronto Blue Jays play there; their park is the Rogers Centre, formerly the Skydome; there are hotel rooms in the Skydome which face directly into the ballpark, which became a topic of some notoriety in the late 1990's when a couple in a hotel room decided to indulge in an activity significantly more intimate than attending a baseball game and chose the window as the site of said activity; and that my favorite band, Barenaked Ladies, is from Toronto, as was a band I followed a long time ago when they were still together, Moxy Fruvous.That was the extent of my Toronto knowledge. So I used a 12-year old Lonely Planet Toronto Travel Guide and a Toronto app I found while waiting at Logan and read about the history and the neighborhoods.

I landed in Toronto and as always made my way quickly through Canadian customs. I have never had a problem on the Canadian side of the border. The U.S. side ... well, that's for another blog post. The funny part, though, came when Danielle and I tried to meet up. Her flight was due about the same time as mine and indeed we arrived within a few minutes of each other. But we quickly figured out that we had flown into different terminals. I thought it was because hers was a domestic flight and mine was technically international, but she says it's because we were on two different airlines (Air Canada for me, WestJet for her.) Through a flurry of texts, we finally found each other, and decided to take public transportation to downtown. This revealed the first two of many things that Danielle and I discovered we had in common as travelers: we don't mind heading out on busses and subways to save a few bucks, and we're good at figuring out public transportation. After we went as far as we could on the subway, we struck out walking to the hotel. It was a lot longer than it looked on the map! I've since looked it up and we walked over two miles, Danielle with a rolling suitcase and me with everything in a good-sized backpack.

We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn four blocks from the Rogers Centre. We lucked out by having a young woman check us in who, after she did all the check-in stuff, switched to concierge mode and was SUPER-helpful with city info. We knew we wanted to take the hop-on-hop-off bus tour around the city. My travel-time research had yielded the info that there was more than one company providing that service. She recommended one whose tour included a free 45-minute boat cruise around the Toronto Islands (which I didn't know existed until that morning). So we thought that sounded like fun. We found a place to eat dinner early, an Italian restaurant near the hotel, went swimming in the hotel pool, and called it a night early knowing that we were going to pack a lot into the next day.

Next morning: hotel buffet breakfast and off to the tour. It was a full two hours around the downtown area and that really helped us get oriented. It was a double-decker bus and we were able to get seats on the open-air top deck. The two guides, one for each hour, one young woman and one young man, were dynamic, funny, and full of info. The other tourists on the bus were just about as multi-national as it was possible to be. I think all continents were represented. That was one of the themes of the week; Toronto is supposed to have the biggest mix of nationalities and languages in the world, and I observed that about every place we went except probably the baseball game. I kept thinking of Toronto as New York without the edge; huge financial district, huge entertainment district, ethnic neighborhoods. The only thing it had that I don't believe NYC has is an old neighborhood analogous to Vieux-Québec/Old Quebec.

There was something else Toronto had that I've never seen anywhere else except San Francisco: a dedicated gay village, what our tour guide called the "gayborhood," known locally as Church-Wellesley Village for the intersection in the center. (Oops, forgot about Canadian spelling, make that "gaybourhood.") Toronto had had its Pride Week a few weeks before, and apparently it's the largest Pride gathering in the world. It had a very different vibe from what I remembered of the Castro district in SF. I visited San Francisco for the first time in 1987 during my first trip to California for my brother Richard's wedding. It was April school vacation, so I went for the whole week, and I had a few days on my own while Richard was working or busy and the rest of the family hadn't gotten there yet. It was the beginning of the AIDS crisis and I remember the Castro district having a subdued, hard edge to it, and being just about all men, no women. Not Church-Wellesley in 2014. There were rainbow flags, signs, and murals everywhere. (Toronto loves murals. They were everywhere, not just here.) There was a mix of men and women. There was a few identical permanent installations. And I saw a Pride 2014 guide and learned a new abbreviation. I've seen LGB, and LGBTQ, but do you know what all the letters represent in LGBTTIQQ2SA?  I didn't! As Danielle said, "If they're going to include allies, why don't they just say 'people'?" I have to give Toronto Pride credit for inclusivity, though! And I will admit that even after learning what the letters stood for, I didn't know what all those terms meant. (Answer key: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, intersex, queer, questioning, two-spirited, and allies.)

The rainbow helix in this photo appeared to be a permanent installation.

Then it was on to the Rogers Centre for the Toronto Blue Jays vs. the Boston Red Sox, the event that had sparked this whole trip. I had on a Sox t-shirt and was in a distinct minority! Very active Jays fan base. As I always do when I visit a park for the first time, I got there early and walked all around it. Lovely park. 

Another thing I always do at a park new to me is take a "view from my seat" photo. This is it. Don't be fooled by the empty seats; it was about 45 minutes before the game time. The place was eventually packed.

Must be nice to just close the roof when it's raining and not deal with rain delays and rainouts. The Tuesday tour guide said it takes 20 minutes and ten dollars' worth of electricity to open or close the roof. I checked out the whole concourse. Nice and clean and wide with great sidelines. Planned on dinner there. This is probably the only MLB park that has poutine on the menu, so chicken poutine (which probably isn't strictly poutine) was my choice. The game ... well, David Ortiz hit a three-run homer in the top of the 1st, I got all excited thinking it was going to be a great game for the Sox ... and the pitching was lukewarm and they lost 6-4.  But it was still a cool experience. I love getting to know a new park. We had terrific seats high above home plate ... for $14!!! Huge crowd, very well-behaved; that Canadian politeness again! Fenway faithful will be impressed to know that the parking lot a block away cost $8. Not per hour, for the whole game. And we had just a four-block walk back to the hotel. As always, I'm a purist who can do without all the electronic entertainment on the Jumbotron and speaker system, but I understand that MLB is marketing to people who want loud stimulating entertainment and that they're doing it to fill seats. And one more piece of personal trivia: I made sure I knew the Canadian national anthem in English so I could sing it, since I only knew it and had sung it in French! Never did an American sing the Canadian national anthem with more gusto. Yes, and the Star-Spangled Banner too, in case you're wondering.

Thursday, our last full day, started with breakfast at Cora, a popular Canadian breakfast and lunch chain with delicious food. Not Cora's, Cora. For past and present Latin students, that's nominative case, not genitive. :)  Then the free-with-our-tour-bus-ticket 45-minute cruise around the Toronto Islands, which, as noted above, I didn't know existed until 48 hours prior. Nice intro to what is an interesting combination of a small airport, a tiny village of 300 (I think) year-round residents and a school!!!, parkland, cafés, and beaches. -- including a clothing-optional beach. I absolutely love it that the tour guides talked about the nude beach and it was on the map and everyone was utterly matter-of-fact about it. Between the gay village and the clothing-optional beach, I have to say that Canadians are quite free of hang-ups. About sexuality and the human body, anyway. - although the tour guide did share one funny fact. It is legal in the city of Toronto to be nude on a beach, but illegal in the province of Ontario to swim nude. So people can be on the beach nude, but not go into the water that way. I wonder how they enforce it. I wonder whether that's even possible. No, the boat cruise did not go to the west side where the clothing-optional beach is. There are regular ferry boats from the mainland to the islands, so we decided to come back later - for the rest of the island, not the clothing-optional beach! First we had to do what was #1 on Danielle's list, and something we were both scared to death of even though neither one of us admitted it to the other until after we did it ... go up the second tallest building in the world, the CN Tower. That's CN as in Canadian National railroad, not CNN as in news. Someone said that people make that mistake all the time.

We had gotten our tickets ahead so were spared a wait in line. We still had to clear an interesting gate which I thought was security but actually blew puffs of air at you from head to foot to "clear any particles." No idea what they were clearing or why that's important. We didn't have to wait too long for the elevator, then when we got on, we saw that one whole side was a window and we got to watch the whole 58-second ride up the equivalent of 114 stories to the observatory. I didn't look. I hate heights. I was holding on to a handrail and realized shortly after liftoff that my hands were cold and clammy. Then when we got to the top and the observatory ... THAT was COOL. First thing I looked at was the Rogers Centre below. Here's a photo of what a 50,000-seat ballpark looks like from 114 stories up. 

The Sox and the Jays were playing a day game at the time, not that you could tell! At one point, we heard a big cheer. The Jays had apparently scored. Story of my life this week for three out of the four Sox games in Toronto. :(  A big cheer sounds very cool from 114 stories up. The observatory had two levels, one windowed in and one open with mesh where the windows would be. There was also about a twelve-square-yard "glass floor" where you could stand and look down 114 stories under your feet. No way. Danielle did, though. The other thing that kept freaking me out was feeling the tower sway ever so subtly. I did fine for awhile, but after awhile I was ready to head down. Did I mention that I hate heights? I hate heights so much I don't know how I manage to fly anywhere. But I was very glad I did it, not only for the cool experience of seeing so much of the landscape, especially the ballpark, from 114 stories up, but I was glad that I didn't let fear of heights stop me from doing something that was perfectly safe. I regret not having gone up the Eiffel Tower when I had the chance just because of fear of heights, so I've promised myself not to let that happen again.

We grabbed lunch right there in the cafeteria of the base of the tower because we had one more big goal. We really wanted to go back to the Toronto Islands, whose existence I had only known of for 48 hours. It's about a 20-minute ferry ride over, so we walked to the ferry terminal and didn't have a long wait at all. For southern Mainers, it felt very much like going from Portland to Peaks Island, but without the ocean fragrance!

The Toronto Islands, as noted several paragraphs earlier, are a combination of a big park, beaches, lots of little cafés, and a tiny year-round community - with a school, even! I looked for the school but didn't find it, which gives me an excuse to go back someday! So we walked and walked and walked ... until we discovered the rental for bicycles, tandem bikes, and quadricycles. It was 4:45 p.m. and they only rented them until 6 p.m., so we moved fast, acquired a quad, and away we went. 

We went up and down a big garden, the little side streets in the inhabited park, and a gorgeous seawall on the side away from the city -- which, again for southern Mainers, reminded me of riding bicycles around the back side of Peaks. We got stopped and asked to turn around at one point because they were filming a reality show for the Food Network.

We got the quad back just in time and decided to grab dinner at the restaurant by the ferry landing. It looked like a nice restaurant on the outside but was more of a snack bar menu. We ordered and had a seat on the waterfront. Here's a photo with the Rogers Centre and the CN Tower in the middle since they pretty much dominate the landscape.

There was one more proof of the seemingly uninhibited nature of Canadians. A group of five, two men and three women, sat down at the next table which, like ours, was at the water's edge and directly faced the ferry landing. They were all about 40ish, suburban and well-dressed. We didn't pay much attention to them until the ferry was departing, people on the ferry and people at the restaurant were waving to each other ... and one of the women at the next table stood up and saluted the crowd by pulling up her shirt and bra. The response from the ferry was quite approvingly enthusiastic! We were both under the impression that she knew people on the ferry, but nevertheless, everyone on the port side of the ferry got to partake of the topless farewell, which didn't seem to concern her. So let's see, a historic sexual encounter at the Skydome that is still talked about two decades later, a festive gay village, a clothing-optional beach, and flashing the ferry. The cold must freeze Canadians' inhibitions or something. Definitely makes for great travel blog postings.

Our return ferry left close to sunset, which yielded more pretty views of the city skyline. Even though we'd had a very full day, it was beautiful weather outside, our last night there, and the harbourfront (yes, US friends, that's how it's spelled up there, along with colour, favour, etc.) was just so pretty and appealing. So, tired feet notwithstanding, we walked all the way back to the hotel so as not to miss out on one possible minute of lakefront time.

My day started at 4:30 a.m. with a cab ride to the airport. Too early for public transportation. To my utter surprise, I cleared U.S. customs before leaving the Toronto airport. It's all set up right there! I answered nearly all the questions on a touchscreen, the agent spent about ten seconds with me before stamping my passport and wishing me a good flight, and no one ever looked in my bag. What a contrast to the harrowing experience I had last April driving into Michigan after cutting across southern Ontario after driving from Maine. There was something about my car they didn't like and they ordered me to leave my keys and all my belongings except my cash in the car and to step into a windowless building where I was interrogated while they searched it. Really scary even though I knew they wouldn't find anything because there was nothing to find. Give me the Toronto screening any day.  Back to this trip, the flight to Boston left promptly and was quick and uneventful. As with the flight there, I enjoyed giving my French a workout as all the Air Canada cabin announcements were in English followed by French. We arrived in Boston, I disembarked, looked for the signs pointing me to customs ... and there weren't any! They really did do it all at the Toronto airport! So I went straight to ground transportation and caught the bus for home.

Toronto plans for the future:
• more time on the Toronto Islands, especially to find the school
• exploring some of the international neighborhoods
• seeing a show at the Princess of Wales or Royal Alexandra Theatre
• more baseball and perhaps a hockey game
• more walking! It's a very walkable city.

I've learned that Danielle and I are great travel partners because we have common interests, comparable energy and activity levels, and a keen interest in getting out and seeing things. And we're both fluent in French, which may come in handy someday!

For discussion: How do you like to get acquainted with a new city or destination? Have you ever done anything, either while traveling or at home, that you were afraid of but did anyway because you didn't want to miss the experience? What makes a person an ideal travel partner for you?