Oh Canada!!
My trip to Toronto July 12-15 2002

On sort of a whim I decided to go visit the great white north. The Boston Red Sox were playing a four game series there and I hadn't seen the Sox at all this year. With a looming Baseball Strike coming next month, I figured I should get to see the Sox while the getting was good. Besides, attendance at Blue Jay games was way down and getting good tickets at a late date was very possible. So away I went. I got my flight, reasonably priced, I got pretty good seats, I got a deal on a hotel room, thank you Priceline. The stage was set. I flew out of Boston and arrived at Toronto. But there was a problem.

I was in line at the customs station, and I knew I had made a mistake. The other lines were moving briskly, but my line was not. Leave it to me. You can always tell which line is the slowest line at the bank, store.... wherever. You know how you can tell, I am in it. So I am in line and it gets to be my turn. I am presented with a Jean Claude Van Damme sound a like, and sort of look a like. I give him my form and my ID and he asks. "Da yu have a passport or birf certificate?" I answered "No". In past I have brought my birth certificate and no one has ever asked to see it. I don't have a passport and I actually don't know where my birth certificate is now. He says to me "Don't yu noo Can-a-Da is a foreeen coontry?" Well yes it is, but they are a neighbors to the north. There are Canadians everywhere on Cape Cod, we have as many Canadian quarters in circulation around here as there are US quarters. Its hard to think of Canada as a real foreign country. So he asks me some more questions and then he runs a pink line through my form and says "Goo!!". And now I am thinking the real Jean Claude Van Damme would have used a black or a red marker. So a matronly lady takes me to a new line where I meet a uniformed officer. I showed him every form of ID I had, insurance cards, credit cards. Finally he asks me if I have a business card, so I whip out my KCDw business card and he stamps the form and I am outta there.

My first full day there, I decided to visit the Royal Ontario Museum, the ROM. I had been there before back in 1990, so I knew sort of what to expect there. In fact I spent about 4 hours there, I could have spent more. Most of the time I spent on the 3rd floor, this is where they have the historic displays starting with Egyptians and on through to Europeans. The notable exclusion being Asia, this was on the first floor. The 2nd floor, which I didn't even visit this time, has natural displays. Dinosaurs, Bats and other dioramas of various animals. They also had a special display of art from the Vatican. This was prerty interesting too, though some of the art was pretty lame, a statue of Jesus on the cross in particular looked like it was made in Japan in the 50s. I took a bunch of photos while at the ROM, check out my ROM photo page

After ROM was the first of the two Red Sox games. I stayed in downtown Toronto, off of Yonge St and the stadium is also in downtown Toronto so I was able to walk to the stadium. The Red Sox ended up losing this one, they didn't play very well and ended up losing 4-1. The seats were pretty good, right behind home plate, but far enough back so that I wasn't in the sun the whole time. I have got a number of sunburns from watching baseball games, so this worked out well. I made a mistake of eating in the Skydome, two slices of pizza and two waters ended up costing over $14.00, of course this Canadian dollars, so that made it a bit easier to live with. There were tons of Red Sox fans, I wouldn't be surprised if they outnumbered Blue Jay fans. In fact the plane coming into Toronto was filled with Red Sox fans as well.

The next day before the game, I went for a cruise around the Toronto Harbor. This was interesting, since in addition to being able to be out on the water on a nice day, I learned a little Toronto history. The city has removed all the polluting industry from the waterfront and now there are condos and movie studios and a sugar refinery plant. There are 15 islands out in Lake Ontario which are home to an airport, wildlife refuge, an amusement park and many marinas. Check out the Toronto photo page

Then on to the next game, which the Red Sox lost again, this time in dramatic fashion. They were losing through the game only to tie it in the top of the 9th with a dramatic home run by Trot Nixon. In the very next half inning, Urbina gave up a home run on the first pitch leading to me and many Red Sox fans to leave upset.

I stopped at the Eaton Centre on my way home, its a big mall with a very large department store, Eatons, attached to it. The next day I did some souvenir shopping, back to Eaton's again, and then headed home. I had my mother fax my birth certificate to the hotel so I could exit with out hassle.

And that was it, nothing really exciting, just a quick getaway to gladden the spirits, which worked, even though the Red Sox lost, its always fun to catch a game and better to catch two.

ROM Photo Page | Toronto Photo Page