Hello all!
I've had a really great but busy day in Toronto. Courtney stayed back with Tori this morning to get her ready for her flight, and I set off by myself.
I walked to the streetcar (tram) and successfully travelled into the city. The driver was so friendly when I checked I was on the right one :) A good start to the day!
I got off the tram and walked to Queens Park, where I checked out a few war memorials and saw the Provincial Government Building. There were lots of cheeky black squirrels running around too! I saw a statue of Queen Victoria (who the park was named after) and a statue of the founder of Toronto, Lieutenant Colonel John Graves.
It isn't very snowy here at the moment but the park was covered in snow which was lovely!!
I basically just walked around and took in the sights, then had a quick stop at Starbucks. People kept walking up to me and asking me for directions - do I look Canadian?!? Luckily I was able to help most of them!
My next stop was Nathan Philips Square, named after a previous mayor of the city. There was a huge ice skating rink and heaps of people skating. I people watched for a while and smiled at all the cute little kids who were flying around the rink like it was what they were born to do.
I had another look at Union Station and hit 10,000 steps at 11.45am!! I walked around the harbour area, sat in the park and enjoyed the (unexpected!) sunshine and blue sky. By pure coincidence I walked past the Air Canada Centre and saw lots of people going in. Before I came here I had looked up if any ice hockey was on, but unfortunately it wasn't. But luckily for me, my research was wrong! It turns out the Junior World Championships are on here and today at 5.30pm there was a quarter final happening, so I got in touch with Courtney and bought us the cheapest tickets I could find - $48 each. I shouted Courtney to say thanks for letting me crash at hers.
I met with Courtney at 1pm and we went to the CN tower. Canada National Railways built this in the 70s to prove the engineering skills of Canada, and at 553m it serves as a telecommunications tower for this area. It opened in 1976 and took 1500 workers 40 months to build. It's huge! It also gets struck by lightning on average 75 times a year. The weather was so odd today. So cloudy when I left that you couldn't even see the tower, then so sunny I pretty much sun baked, and then cloudy again. Just like Melbourne! When we went up it was a bit cloudy but still clear enough to see. The view was pretty good, but obviously up the tower you don't get the view of the tower itself. Courtney pointed out a few landmarks and distant suburbs to me, and then we went to the outdoor area. It was so windy I thought we might blow away!! We had a quick look at the glass floor part and the headed back down.
Once back down, we walked to the ferry terminal and caught the ferry over to the Toronto islands. Nothing is open on them in winter, but we went for the view. We were lucky that the sun made an appearance again and treated us to a beautiful view over Lake Ontario. When we got to Wards Island we walked to the beach, it was so cold but Courtney dared me to touch the water so of course I had to! Then we got the ferry back.
Next up was the ice hockey. I'm so happy I got tickets. We really enjoyed ourselves. So apparently ten countries compete every year in this Junior World Championships tournament, and this year was Toronto and Montreal's turn to host. Competitors must be 16-19 years old. We bought ourselves some popcorn and trekked up to our nosebleed section seats. Then a man approached us and asked if we wanted to sit on ground level rinkside. I replied "are we allowed to?" thinking surely it was a scam. But it wasn't, he handed over the tickets and off we went. We think he bought them hoping to resell and they didn't, so he just wanted someone to have the experience.
So all of a sudden we went from nosebleed seats to the second row rinkside. The match was USA vs Switzerland and the USA bench was literally a metre in front of us. We didn't know the rules but I wasn't bored even for a second. The game was so fast paced and entertaining, the skills the players have are incredible. To not only skate that well but coordinate hitting a puck around accurately at the same time - wow!!
The crowd were on Switzerland's side because they were the underdog, but they put up a really good fight. They equalised 2-2 at one point, but the USA won 3-2 in the end. We absolutely loved it and the atmosphere was great!! All together we saw one injury, six sin binnings and many crashes into the fence - they pummel each other out there! Here is me with my back injury after one push from a girl at basketball, I really don't know how these guys get straight back up and aren't hurt! Two things that I loved as well were that Switzerland was sponsored by Lindt (haha!) and that whenever a goal was scored the MC announced who made the assist as well as scored the goal. I wish we did that at basketball!
Afterwards, we had dinner at a nearby pub and met up with my friend Heather. Like Courtney, it's not straightforward to explain how I know Heather. She's from Toronto, but lives and works in London, but I met her in Latvia in October 2015. She's home until tomorrow visiting her family for the holidays. It was great to catch up and see her, and she kindly gave us a lift home in her car to Courtney's.
It's been a fantastic day but I am absolutely wrecked and full of cold. I'm having a bit of a lie in tomorrow and then going to meet up with my brother and his friend who arrived here tonight. Courtney and I have also booked a comedy show. Another great day lies ahead!
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
Great photos Claire xx
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