Toronto – Shopping & Baseball
We were picked up early yesterday morning by the taxi to take us to Gatwick and after a couple of hours of milling around the airport finally boarded the plane to Toronto.
The flight itself was fairly uneventful. We managed to get a window and an aisle seat, had a decent amount of legroom and there was a decent in-flight entertainment system with some new-ish films. I ended up watching the new X-Men film as well as Neighbors to help pass the 8 hours of flight time.
When we landed in Toronto we were quickly through immigration control and found ourselves a taxi to take us to the hotel. We got talking to the driver about the city and what to do (the usual taxi banter) and when he asked where we were from, and we told him “just outside London” he told us that he had family in Kent. We ask where, he says Gillingham. Turns out, his family lives a couple of miles from where we do!
After we checked in to the hotel down by the waterfront we hopped into another taxi to take us up to Queen Street. I had asked a camera shop to put a camera aside for me as, due to the current exchange rate, I was able to save £50 on a camera that we were after. We then spent what we’d saved on the camera by buying an SD card, case and a floating strap!
We then took a stroll through the city back to the hotel, taking in a few of the sights, to get our bearings for when we would be out doing some proper exploring and, after dropping the camera back into the room, we headed off out for the evening to watch the Blue Jays play baseball against the Seattle Mariners at the Rogers Centre.
I’d watched baseball on the TV before but this was the first time I’d gone to see a baseball game live and was really looking forward to it. It was the tail end of the season and so the game wasn’t that important but it was still exciting for us. I knew the basic rules and we got chatting to some local fans next to us who explained a bit more of the technical stuff and what the various stats for each player meant so we could properly understand what was going on.
The game itself was a high-scoring one with the Blue jays eventually running out 14-4 winners and there were a few home runs scored, although The Wife got a little confused and cheered when the Mariners scored one, much to the bemusement of those around us!
By the time the game finished we worked out that it was around 3.30am UK time and was the reason that we were feeling knackered, so we decided to call it a night to ensure we would be feeling fresh(ish) for our first full day the next morning.
