Toronto

Baseball, and beer, and more

/ Greg / Leave a comment

I have nine Major League Baseball parks left to visit and my quest to visit such exotic locales as Kansas City, Arlington, St. Louis, and Milwaukee is indefinitely on hold as travel south of our border really isn’t appealing to me these days. Fortunately, it’s been more than a hot minute since I had been to a few Jays games in Toronto and this past summer I was eager to visit the remodelled Skydome (I will not call that place by its corporate name) and enjoy the Blue Jays as they were in the midst of their supercharged season.

With baseball as the backbone of the trip, I coloured in the gaps with a lot of fun. I adore solo travel for the indulgence it offers, and after arriving on a dinner-time flight from Saskatoon, I stashed my bags at my downtown hotel and made my way up to Queen Street West to take in a show by The Montvales, a band I had become smitten with over the summer. In all of the time I have spent in Toronto over the years, I had never managed to see a concert at the Horseshoe Tavern and loved every minute of soaking in not only a great show, but also all of the history of Canadian music that has played on the stage. Even a pretty deep accidental cut on my thumb from some broken glass couldn’t dampen my enthusiasm for my first night in TO. Take a listen to these two part harmonies on their song “Bad Faith” and you’ll understand why.

The Montvales concert at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto
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Winter fun in Toronto

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I have grown fond of taking a quick winter trip each year to escape what can feel like endless darkness and cold in Saskatchewan. Given the extremes of living on the prairies in winter, it means just about anywhere else for a short visit will be less harsh. Well, not so fast this past winter. I booked a four day visit to Toronto on account of my current boycott of the USA and the fact that a direct flight holds a lot of cachet when traveling across this country in the dead of winter. While my flights miraculously went off without a hitch, I clearly picked the wrong days to explore Toronto as I was hit with more winter weather and snow than I would see in Saskatoon for almost the entirety of the winter season.

My visit got off to a lucky start as I arrived in Toronto just after the first blizzard had cleared away and with my flight there being the first in about a day and a half to not be canceled out of Saskatoon into Toronto. As I waited for a street car to take me to some craft brewery exploring, there were blue skies above and a reasonable amount of fresh snow on the ground.

Queen Street West in Toronto
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Favourite travel experiences of 2014

/ Greg / 1 Comment

As each year draws to a close, I like to think back on my travels and distill down my favourite memories and experiences.  It’s part simple reflection and an exercise in gratefulness for the past year.  It also helps to plan future trips as I continue to learn about what makes me happy and what I cherish in experiences.  As I was doing so this year, it became pretty evident that many of my favourite travel memories this year ended up revolving around food, wine and drink.   In no particular order, here are my ten favourite travel related experiences from 2014:

1. Drinking on the roof of a church – And not just any church… I shared a couple of shots of liquor on top of St. Peter’s Bascilica in Rome with six German women.  Better than the liquor were the laughs shared and the feeling of cheating a lightening bolt for such behaviour.

Enjoying a drink on top of St. Peter's

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Looking back on 2014

/ Greg / Leave a comment

By just about any measure, this past year was an interesting one for travels and exploration.  It was a bit of a grab bag of locations and for a good part of the year, I was packing my bags about every month en route out of Halifax.   Here’s a quick look back at how I accumulated a few more passport stamps, some frequent flier miles, but most importantly, some great memories.

Toronto – Two separate trips to a place that feels like a home away from home let me experience some new restaurants, finally see my first Leafs game, and take in part of a Blue Jays home stand with my Dad.  Of all the great memories, sitting with Dad and swapping stories over a few Steam Whistle pilsners is what I’ll remember most.

With Dad at Jays game

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A morning of sharks, eels and blue lobsters

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My Dad was pretty stoked to visit the new aquarium on our visit to Toronto.  I’ve never been much of an aquarium guy.  Honestly, when I walk around one, I’m pretty much thinking, “I wonder how that fish would taste?”   Maybe I shouldn’t visit these places around lunch.  But I digress…  The Toronto Aquarium was a pretty cool attraction and captured my interest enough that it made me pretty excited to visit the New England Aquarium on my recent visit to Boston.

The main feature at the Toronto Aquarium is their shark tank.  But they first tease you with a whole host of interesting sea life.  One of my favourites was the steely eyed wolf eel:

Wolf eel

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Jays games with Dad

/ Greg / 3 Comments

I’m having a pretty good year of seeing baseball so far – a couple of early season games in Chicago, a recent game in Boston, and back in May, my Dad and I took in three Blue Jays games in Toronto.   This is the second time over the past few years that we’ve moved into my sister’s downtown apartment while she was away, stocked up the fridge with a few days supply of Steam Whistle, and then spent most of our time down at the place formerly known as SkyDome.

For the first of the three games, the Phillies were in town to start a short two game series.   Dad and I were camped out way up in the 500 level with vertigo-inducing seats:

With Dad at Jays game

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Escape to the islands

/ Greg / 1 Comment

When my Dad and I were in Toronto back in early May, we weren’t treated to great weather for the few days there.  It was unseasonably cold and windy, so we were lucky the Jays games we went to were played under the dome.  We did get one relatively nice afternoon to make a trip neither of us had before.  A quick walk from my sister’s condo (our home away from home for this trip) is the ferry over to the Toronto Islands.   Shortly after departing downtown, this is the view back toward the city… pretty nice!

Toronto skyline

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Another return from Toronto

/ Greg / Leave a comment

It’s not quite an annual tradition, but my Dad and I try to make it up to Toronto as often as we can to take in some Blue Jays games and check out a few sights from around the city.   Lately, we’ve been pretty solid good luck charms for the Jays, and it was no different on this trip with the home team winning two of the three games we saw.  We also seem to inspire the best in Edwin Encarnacion on our visits.  He might want to include some free tickets and a plush downtown condo for us in his next contract negotiations.  Here he is circling the bases after one of three monster home runs he hit while we looked on:

Blue Jays game at Rogers Centre

A second trip to Toronto in 2014 for me, this was a really nice three days with my Dad.  There was a lot of time at Rogers Centre for the games, a trip to the new aquarium at the base of the CN Tower, some time over on the Toronto Islands on a pleasant spring day, a visit to the St. Lawrence Market and more than a couple of ice cold Steam Whistle beers enjoyed while just generally hanging out.  I’ll write more in the coming weeks on a few new to me experiences in Toronto.

A world of food in Toronto

/ Greg / 1 Comment

A trip to Toronto for me is always a chance to sample from a world’s worth of cuisines.  On this last visit, I managed to to squeeze in some pretty tasty Spanish, El Salvadorian, Mexican and Venezuelan meals.

Spanish: Patria

The food of Spain isn’t the only allure for me, it’s also the art of tapas that draws me in.  I always struggle picking something from a menu, so tapas works perfectly for me.  Patria, on King St. West, is a relatively new Toronto restaurant and was the place my sister picked for her birthday meal.  The food and wine were lovely, and we had a nice cross section of tapas.   Marcona almonds, chorizo, manchego, pan con tomate, roasted peppers, some interesting Spanish wines, and much more…. good times!

Tapas at Patria

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