Of all the stops on our trip, I might have been most excited for our journey north -- my first time traveling beyond the U.S. border. I had my passport all ready to go (unlike another member of our traveling party -- we'll get to that later) and I couldn't wait to see Canada's wonders.
We left Buffalo early Sunday morning and drove to the border crossing near Niagara Falls. Now, the Niagara on the United States side is about as depressing as towns get. It's not in very good shape, and has clearly seen better days. But once you get sight of Maple Leaf Land, you think Canadians are the ones having all the fun. Seriously, their side of the border looks like one constant party.
Then, you get to Toronto. It's a joyous place of magic and wonder, with sweet buildings like this.
The place looks like the future. Almost like the city planners were super Star Wars freaks exiled from Michigan and New York.
It's also a super clean city, with pretty amazing architecture all around. The Rogers Centre (the stadium formerly known as SkyDome) gets ragged on a lot, but even it looks pretty sweet from the outside.
I mean, how many American buildings could get away with gargoyles like THIS on the wall?
Like I said, Toronto is the city of the future. Don't sights like this make you want to live there? I know I do.
So, I'm already ecstatically in love with Toronto after seeing a few blocks of downtown. Then, we got inside the Centre of Awesomeness. It was Photo Day, a fantastic promotions event where fans are let down on the field to take pictures of players either walking around the stadium are sitting behind super protective rope barriers.
I'd gone to one of these events before, just after knee surgery. I was in a wheelchair, so I got to go to a special area of Busch Stadium, and got all the 2005 Cardinals' autographs. Time of my life.
This time almost ended up not so sweet. Miles had already walked in the gate when the women taking our tickets asked us if we wanted to go down to the field for Photo Day. We did, but she told us we had to go in a different gate to get to the field, but that Miles couldn't leave and re-enter.
Oh well, we said, we'll go in anyway and take pictures of the field from the seats.
So we're standing in the seats around club level, when not one, but TWO separate ushers come up to us and say, 'You know, you can go down on the field, if you want.'
Ghwahhh?!?! What ballpark staff comes up and, in a friendly manner, encourages college kids to go down on the field?!?!? I love Canada even more.
We walked down the concourse and behind a gate onto the beautiful bounty of fake grass on the SkyDomeCentre floor. Here, we got to take pictures of our favorite Blue Jays, or in this case, my favorite ex-Cardinals.
Canada's a truly magical place, a mystic land where the metric system still exists.
As we walked off the field, the heavens opened and shone down upon us. Oh wait, that's just the RogersDomeSkyCentre's retractable roof.
We also met a lovely blond girl walking around with a silly-looking BlackBerry cell phone. We stopped and chatted with her and asked her all about Canada's free health care. Then I touched the BlackBerry's buttons. It giggled.
I don't understand why, but no one comes to Blue Jays games. This stadium was surprisingly fantastic. Especially when an usher left his post and we upgraded our $9 upper deck seats to the $65 club seats.
I don't know what this needle thing is, but it's awesome. It almost looked like a painting. And it made me feel like I was watching baseball in the year 2082.
What makes awesome seats better? Seeing Roy Halladay pitch from those seats.
Another reason to love Canada: really sweet looking money. This $5 bill has a hologram seal on the left side, that kind of looks like the thing they put on authentic Major League Baseball merchandise.
We timed our trip perfectly, when the U.S. dollar is worth less than the Canadian one. So, when our ballpark food cost $10, we gave them $10 of American money, which is really only $9.90 of American money. Great success!
So basically, Canada is the greatest place ever. We figure America is running a giant propaganda scheme to prevent us U.S.A.-ers from finding out how amazing this country is. The people are friendly, the buildings are awesome, the food is delicious, there's a less visible divide between social and economic classes, it looks like Star Wars and you get free health care!
Now, if only the baseball was a little better.
Later on, Miles had a couple of problems on the way back to America. Like spilling soda all over his pants. Thank goodness I had my camera there to document the event.
Miles also re-entered the country illegally. He was supposed to have a passport or a driver's license and a birth certificate. He only had a driver's license. The nice border guard let him into the country, but he didn't have to. So, Colin and I now claim that Miles is here against U.S. law. He's lucky we didn't turn him over to the border patrol right there.
Singing the Team America theme song, we returned to our glorious land, with the knowledge that our neighbors to the north are slightly more glorious.
I have no idea how this picture turned out so cool. The real things looks nothing like this at all. Probably more of that American propaganda, keeping us Yankees out of heaven.
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