Toronto

Hi all,

I didn’t write yesterday afternoon as not too much happened due to it being a travel day, then we got back late last night.

Yesterday morning we were up early at 5am to catch an Uber to Calgary Airport. We wondered en route why the airport code is YYC, and after a quick google search I find out Canada put a Y at the front of any airport code for ‘yes’ it has a weather/radio station once upon a time. The other letters in their airport codes are often due to Morse code letters for the train station that was in the city at the time. Toronto’s airport code is YYZ for the same reason. How confusing nowadays! Melbourne being MEL just makes sense.

Our flight left at 8am and took 3.5 hours. We were next to a nice family from Calgary that we chatted away to. Rob watched a TV show and I read a book, and it flew by. We had some nice views from the plane of the flat prairie lands, and a hazy view of Toronto as we descended (I assume due to the Alberta fires).

When we landed we got the UP train to Union Station (which gave us a laugh as they still had Perspex dividers between the two seats on the train, serious 2020 vibes *shudders*) and then walked to our accommodation. We are staying in a small room in the Queen West area, but the storage is very efficient for the space.

We then walked to Nathan Philips Square, named after a former mayor of Toronto. When I visited my friend Courtney who lived here in January 2017, she took me ice skating in the square. Yesterday it was sunny and 25, and there was a pond with a fountain here instead. Lots of festivals and events take place here throughout the year.

We then walked down towards the lake. There were so many people around as it was Friday night, the Blue Jays (baseball team) were playing and the Maple Leafs (ice hockey team) were playing a playoff (final). Most people were walking around in their blue and white and there was a buzz in the air. The Blue Jays are the only Canadian baseball team in the MLB, and the Toronto Raptors are the only Canadian basketball team in the NBA, so it seems like a pretty big sporting city here.

We walked by Lake Ontario, one of the Great Lakes, for a little while but there were a lot of mosquitoes. So we headed to the restaurant we were meeting my friends Lara and Keith at. I met Lara and Keith on my Egypt and Jordan trip at the end of 2018 when they were on their honeymoon. They are such a friendly, lovely couple and the four of us got along very well. They spoilt us by bringing us a cooler bag full of Canadian snacks for us to try which was so generous! We had dinner and drinks at a nice pub where the Maple Leafs game was playing. We had looked into tickets but they were over $400 Australian each which was just ridiculous. So we watched together instead with them explaining the rules. The Leafs ended up equalising 2-2 with a few minutes left, and it went to extra time during which the Florida Panthers scored a goal and the match ended. This ends the Leafs’ finals campaign as they lost the round against Florida 4 games to 1 and are now out. With how expensive the tickets were and Keith explaining they’re expensive even in the regular season due to the stadium’s 18000 seat capacity (it is pretty small, I watched some junior ice hockey championships here last time) it made me really appreciate how accessible the sport I enjoy attending, AFL, is at home. Tickets and memberships are usually pretty reasonably priced, members can always attend if they want to, and in the home and away season non members can walk up to most games if they wish.

Anyway, we had lots of fun riding the bumps of the game together and catching up. The pub was very animated when the Leafs were skating down to their end with the puck, but everyone was pretty sad when they lost. We walked back to our accommodation and bid farewell to Lara and Keith who went to catch their train. It had been a big day, and we went to sleep at midnight (10pm in the time zone we had left from).

This morning we slept in a little. Rob checked North’s footy score and wished he hadn’t. We set off at about 10.30 and walked past the Rogers Centre (the baseball stadium) and then to Lake Ontario. Here we caught a water taxi to the Toronto Islands. Courtney had brought me here in winter 2017, but apart from residents returning to the island we were the only ones on the ferry, and it was very cold (nearly 0 degrees from memory).

Today was very different. We exited the water taxi and it was sunny and 22 degrees. We walked over to the water’s edge and enjoyed a lovely skyline view of Toronto, and then walked past the children’s amusement park and a main avenue through a garden. Here we read that from the 1880s people built homes and businesses on the islands. But in 1953, the government decided they wanted to make the islands a big park to make up for a huge expressway they were building in the city. They demolished 1/3 of the buildings here, many of which were down the main avenue we walked on. But the people of the island fought them off from demolishing anything else and in 1973 officially won the right to preserve their remaining homes. We are glad they did, because it seems a beautiful and peaceful place to live out of the city but near to it. We hired bikes near the pier and rode to Ward’s Island (where Courtney had taken me) and saw lots of cute cottagey houses with artwork on display outside. Then we rode to the other side of the islands where we saw a lighthouse that was built in 1808, and at the time was the only light on the horizon where Toronto was. It’s the oldest preserved lighthouse in the Great Lakes and the second oldest preserved in Canada. Back when it was built it was 8m from the shifting shoreline, but today it’s pretty far inland on the islands. It ceased being used in 1957.

Once we gave our bikes back we walked back to the harbour and this time caught the public ferry back. We were glad we went and really enjoyed our time here. We got a hotdog for lunch before setting off for the ice hockey match we were attending. On the way we walked through Union Station and then the baseball crowd going to their second game against the Atlanta Braves. It made us miss the vibe of walking from Richmond Station to the MCG.

After a 40 minute walk we arrived at the Coca Cola Coliseum (and we thought 'Marvel Stadium' was a bad name!) where the Toronto Marlies play. I think the world’s fair was held in these grounds once upon a time, as we saw huge gates built for it and there were lots of exhibition buildings around. The Marlies play in the AHL, which I would liken to the VFL at home, in that they're the seconds/feeder team for the Maple Leafs. This was the second of their five games in the third round of the playoffs against the Rochester Americans from New York.

Ice hockey is insane. Players were sin binned for 2 minutes for a mild trip of someone's leg, but when players smashed each other into the transparent boundary on the sidelines this was mostly acceptable - one even smacked a guy’s head into the ground with no consequence. Absolutely brutal! The ease with which they all skate around, forwards, backwards, side to side etc is amazing. But whilst I enjoyed the game, the atmosphere was absolutely exhausting, and Rob thought so too. There was constant insanely loud music and competitions, like the AFL but twice as loud. You didn’t have a moment to just sit and think. After three hours we were totally fried from it. We were lectured at over the PA about respect etc etc every break too, whilst players snapped each other’s hockey sticks in half and slammed each other into the fence, go figure! They eventually lost 4-7, but we were grateful to see so many goals.

We caught the tram back and had Chipotle for dinner - our first since the first day we arrived five weeks ago! Not sure if I’m getting up to watch the pies play tonight. They really pissed me off this week throwing our supporters under the bus re booing when every team does it. It’s on at 2.30am so I guess it depends how I feel when my watch alarm goes off if I set one!

Love to all
Claire
Xoxox