The first job I had in Canada, I knew nothing about that country. I knew John's favorite band was from there. I'd heard of Bob and Doug McKenzie but seriously, that was it. I was in Winnipeg sitting in on a meeting and the client kept saying they needed reporting by Province. I finally raised my hand and said, "so a province, is that like a state?" Luckily, my clients found that endearing (and for the record, the answer was yes).
Since then I've had three jobs in Canada and I still didn't really know anything about it. But, I love it up there! So when we were throwing out ideas for an anniversary adventure, I said, "What about Canada?" I got an enthusiastic yes and the planning began.
Two weeks before the trip, all was in place. We'd booked several tours and then I got an email from Air Canada. They said they'd been working diligently all year with their pilots to come to a deal and they were no where close. The chances of a strike were 80%. What?? I'd seen nothing about this in the news...because it was in Canada.
We were stressing. We'd already paid a lot of money on non-refundable tickets for airfare and various tours and baseball tickets. We had to wait it out. Only if they called a strike and cancelled our flight could we could get a refund.
They were set to strike at midnight. Minutes before they were set to strike, they hammered out some kind of a deal and the strike was averted. And so begins our Canadian adventure...
At the airport waiting to board our Air Canada flight out of Terminal E!
Rush reference! YYZ is the airport code for Pearson Toronto Airport. But it is also a Rush song. One of my favorites, actually. Toronto is pronounced "Toronno" by the natives. The extra "T" is for Tourists. (That was a funny from one of our many tour guides. That's how Canadians can tell you're a tourist, when you pronounce that second "T"). We took the UP Express from the airport into downtown Toronto, which is a cool way to get down there. It's less than $20 US for two people - a fraction of the cost of an Uber or taxi.
Walking around the first night, we came across this mural of Jose "Joey" Bautista with his saucy bat flip. They clearly don't remember him the way we Ranger fans do.
We prefer this one of him getting a knuckle sammich from Roughned Odor.
I love this sign. It's in Nathan Phillips park, which was not far from our hotel. It's beautiful at night. During the day, people will line up and take their photos sitting in the "O" or whatever.
This is the view from our hotel window at night. You can see the CN Tower. So a couple of tips for you. They have a city pass in Toronto for $75-ish a person that gives you access to up to four things: The CN Tower, Casa Loma, the boat tour and the Royal Ontario Museum. If you plan on doing at least 2 of those things, buy the city pass. Also, when you buy your tours on line, use a credit card that doesn't charge you a foreign currency transaction fee. The tours will show you the US price but they will charge you in CAD.
We bought the city pass. On the first day, we went to the CN Tower. It reminds me of Reunion Tower in that it gives you an amazing view of the area. It's 147 stories tall and on the top floor, there are crazy people that will go out and walk around the outside of that floor.
That is Lake Ontario. It was a foggy day that turned into rain. Luckily, we were armed with raincoats and umbrellas. But isn't that an amazing view? The CN Tower was built by the Canadian National Railway Company. As skyscrapers started going up in Toronto, TV reception went down. The tower was built to help alleviate that. From its completion in 1976 to 2007 it was the tallest free standing structure in the world and it's part of the iconic Toronto skyline.
Right outside the CN Tower is the Toronto Railway Museum. It's mostly an outdoor museum of old railway cars from the Canadian Pacific Railway. For a fee, you can go into all the buildings as well as the roundhouse where they have additional artifacts.
This is Toronto Old City Hall. What an amazing structure! It was completed in 1899 and housed a lot of the municipal courts. I think at one point they were going to make it a museum but that hasn't happened yet. I would love to go in there! Unfortunately, there are guards so unless you have business in there...
This, my friends is Casa Loma. We walked to this place. It was a little farther than we anticipated. It was part of the city pass. The house was built in 1914 by Sir Henry Pallett. At the time, it cost $3.5M dollars and took 299 workers 3 years to complete. There are 98 rooms in 200,000 square feet!
This is a view from the back terrace of Casa Loma. You get a lovely view of downtown Toronto. There are four floors, one of which is a basement. The Pallets were only two people and their house was 200,000 square feet! They were only able to stay in the house for less than ten years. The depression hit them hard and they were forced to sell. I think the house was eventually used as a hotel for a bit then a restaurant. The third floor is a museum related to military stuff.
This was my favorite room. It's a solarium. If I lived here, I would spend most of my time here or out on that terrace.
This was called the Windsor room. It was set up in the
hopes that the Queen of England would come to visit. If she did, this was her room. Seriously. I wonder why they had financial troubles.
The next day, we took a boat ride on Lake Ontario. This is a view of the skyline of the city from the boat. The white dome is Rogers Centre, aka the Skydome. It' was the first stadium with a retractable roof. Toronto is full of skyscrapers. They also have what is called the PATH, which is an underground walkway that connects the buildings. It gets cold in Toronto and when it does, the foot traffic goes underground.
At one point on the boat cruise, the guide stopped talking and put on '70's disco music. You can't see them here but there's a tour group of older people that were dancing to YMCA by the Village People. You just can't help yourself when that song comes on.
Our "cruise" ship.
I've been to Canada several times and I've never tried poutine. It's French fries, cheese curds and gravy. That sounds and looks terrible, which is why I never tried it. But I'm ashamed to admit, it was quite tasty.
That night, another box checked! We bought tickets to the Blue Jays game at the Rogers Centre. I honestly thought this was a ballpark we weren't going to make it to, but we did! We sat next to a lovely local couple that won their tickets. As soon as they found out we were from Texas they said, "Well, I guess you aren't rooting for the Jays." I assumed that was a Joey Bautista reference. As long as the teams aren't playing the Rangers, we root for the home team. And that night, it was the Blue Jays.
This is "Ace", the mascot of the Blue Jays. He was willing to stand down there and take photos with anyone who lined up.
This was weird. It was "Loony Dog" night. People were dressed up as hot dogs and they were dancing. I asked our new friends what a loony dog was and they said it was a hot dog with ketchup and mustard and they were only a dollar. Turns out, "loony" in Canada-speak means dollar. So it was dollar dog night. We were about to head to the concession stand, when our new friends headed us a couple of hot dogs. Apparently people just buy tons of them and then hand them around to other people in their section. It was a little weird but we couldn't be rude...
This was just funny. The Jays lost but we got to see another stadium this year.
Next was the Royal Ontario Museum.
This was mostly Asian Art. A lot of stuff was "BC" which is amazing that it's still around but not really our thing. Still, it was part of the city pass so why not? They even had an Egyptian mummy.
We figured out the subway and had fun goofing around down there. I love taking public transportation. It makes me feel very cosmopolitan. The Toronto Subway was very easy to figure out.
I don't know why but I thought this sculpture was funny. We were walking around downtown and there it was.
One thing we did, spur of the moment, was attend a Second City show. It was so cool the way these guys could take an idea and just go with it as a group. I could see if one person was good but they were all good. On person started and they just fed off of one another. No photos during the show, which was a shame. But they were great!
This was the day I was waiting for. Niagara Falls! Our first stop was in this cute little town called Niagara on the Lake. You can barely see it but there's the outline of the Toronto skyline. We are directly across the lake from there. The town was quaint and we thought we could live here. Then our guide told us how cold it was in the winter. Uh, never mind.
This is the Niagara River. On the bus ride, our tour guide was full of fun facts about Canada. The most common spoken language in Toronto is English. The second most common? French? No! Chinese.
Our second stop was at the "Whirlpool". This is another part of the Niagara River which separates the US from Canada. That little car behind us is a cable car that will take you out to the middle of the river to see the whirlpool. If you get caught in that, you are going down. There's no rafting here.
Then the piece de resistance. Our guide said you should stand on the lower deck in the front of the boat. That's where you get the wettist. We did not stand there but we got pretty wet anyway. These little "panchos" are not really helpful but they're cute. Behind us are two falls: The American Falls and the Bridal Falls. Both are on the American side. On that side is an observation deck but you can't really get a good view. The boat cruise will take you out on the river and you'll see the falls up close.
This is the Canadian Falls, aka Horseshoe Falls. That mist can be seen from miles away. We were on a boat like that right down in the mist and it was awesome! One of the tours you can take is something called Behind the Falls. There's a tunnel back there where you can walk behind the actual waterfall but you can't do anything. Our guide said that if you were to stick your hand in the waterfall, it would come right off from the force of the water. Yikes!
He also told us some stories about people that went over the falls...on purpose. The first successful lady went over in 1901 in a wooden barrel that she cushioned with blankets or something. The next successful guy went over in 1911 in a metal barrel. He broke lots of bones but then went on tour talking about his experience. Another guy went over in 1920 in a wooden barrel with an anvil as a ballast. He attached his arm to the anvil thinking it would land cleanly and he could swim to the surface. Unfortunately, the anvil broke the barrel. the only part of him recovered was his arm. It was still attached to the barrel. What is wrong with people?
We learned a lot about Canada on this trip. For example, did you know that Tim Horton was a real person? He was a hockey player for the Toronto Maple Leafs. He and a partner opened two donut stores. Then Tim got traded. He got loaded and was determined to drive home, which we all know is a bad idea. Unfortunately, he had a wreck and died. But his name lives on. Every day in Toronto we got Tim Horton's coffee. It's good and cheap! This coffee was about $1 US. Our guide also swore by the Timbitz, which are donut holes. So, I had to try some. They were delish.
One of the hazards of going on a trip for 12 days with a carryon is that you're gonna have to do laundry. So we found a coin laundry and did just that. It's all part of the experience! It's exactly the same as I remember from college.
This was a really weird sculpture. It's called "Dreaming" and it's right in the middle of the financial district of Toronto. It's a girl with her eyes closed. But her closed eyes follow you as you walk by the sculpture. A little creepy but also kind of cool.
Then we took the train from Toronto to Ottawa, which we picked up at Union Station (above). This was such an easy process. You can walk right up to the gate. No security. No need to be there hours before. What a relaxing way to travel! Of course, I didn't realize we were stopping in 15 different cities along the way but, again, all part of the experience.
A few photos from the train ride. This is Lake Ontario. I never thought of there being a beach by the lake but I guess that makes sense. This was in Port Hope, Ontario.
The fall foliage. The weather was fantastic. It rained a couple of days in Toronto but overall we couldn't have asked for better weather. The train ride was very cool. This was at the Napanee train station.
This is the Rideau River in Smith Falls, Ontario. There are strange people in the train. There was one guy on the train that brought his own beer...and drank it on the train. The conductor threatened to put him off the at the next stop but, instead, took his bag o' beer and told him to behave himself until we got to Ottawa. When we got off the train, we saw that guy talking to the police. Yikes! I hope that was good beer.
Ottawa is Canada's version of Washington DC. It's their seat of government. This is the West Block of Parliament Hill. Currently, the House of Commons is doing business here.
This is Centre Block where both houses of Parliament originally did business but it's under renovation. The big tower in the middle is the Peace Tower, so named as it was re-completed after the WWI. It was originally completed in the late 1800's but then in 1916, it was destroyed by fire. The rebuilding was completed by 1920. It's under renovation again and these renovations are scheduled for completion in 2030-ish.
On Sparks Street where they have all these cool shops and restaurants. Be the "T"!
This is the amazing Fairmont Chateau Laurier. It looks like a castle! It's one of the more expensive hotels in Ottawa. The presidential suite will cost you $1K per night but, it comes with free breakfast (rim shot here please). It was built in 1912 by the Grand Trunk Railway's Pacific line in conjunction with Union Station (where the Senate resides now). It was supposed to open in April of 1912 but the President of the Grand Truck Railway died when the Titanic sank. It opened in June of 1912. It has 429 rooms and 660,000 SF. The original price per room was $2/night.
Sunset in Ottawa.
While the Centre Block is under renovations, the Senate meets here. This used to be Ottawa's Union Station. There's a tunnel that runs underneath the street to the Fairmont Chateau Laurier Hotel.
This was one of our tour options. This is the amphibus. It's like the duck tours in the states where it will drive you around and then just drive into the water. I was thinking maybe but John said no way.
We took a boat ride on the Ottawa River. This is Parliament Hill from the River. It's spectacular.
This is the Alexandra Bridge. It's an interprovince bridge that connects Ontario and Quebec. In Ottawa, we noticed that a lot more people spoke French. I'm assuming it's because of its proximity to Quebec, which is the official language of that province. All over Canada, you are greeted in both English and French. "Good Morning, Bon Jour!" Our boat tour guide did the tour in both English and French and slipped fluidly between both languages.
These are the locks of the Rideau Canal. The canal links the Ottawa River to Lake Ontario in Toronto. You can sail down the canal from Toronto and then go through these locks to go into the Ottawa River.
This is a boat in one of the locks. They drain the water out so that when they open the gates to the next lock, the boat will be at the same water level as the lock. You can kind of see the guy standing on the far side. He's the guy the opens the gate when the water gets to the correct level. Once the boat goes through, they close the gate to this lock and do it again in the next lock until the boat enters the river. It's really cool to watch.
This is the Canada History Museum in Gatineau, Quebec. When you walk across the Alexandra Bridge from Ottawa, you end up here. It was so cool that we could walk to Quebec! The Canada History Museum architect believed that ghosts or spirits lived in "corners". There are no corners in these buildings. The museum starts with the history of the First Peoples (Natives) and moves forward. It's very interesting and we learned a lot.
These are the Rideau Falls. Rideau is French for "Curtain".
This is the Canadian White House where Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada lives. Except he doesn't. They are renovating the house and it's taking forever so he hasn't lived there since he's been in office. However, he lived there when he was a little kid because his dad, Pierre Trudeau, was also Prime Minister.
This is the home of the Ambassador of the United States. He's got a pretty good view as the house overlooks the Ottawa River. Our guide was saying that her sister is a tour guide as well and was pointing out this house on one of her tours. The Ambassador happened to be on that tour and they became friends. How weird is that?
It's the Ottawa Sign! You can't really see me but I'm standing between the A and the W. This is in the Byward Market area where they have tons of shops and restaurants.
Speaking of the Byward Market, this is the Market Building. It's a bustling place, even at night.
This is a view of the Canada Supreme Court Building from the window of our room. It looks super cool all lit up.
As I mentioned before, the Centre Block is closed for renovation but you can do this immersion tour that shows you what it looks like. If you were to walk into Centre Block, you'd be in the memorial hall. Straight ahead is the library, to the left is the House of Commons and to the right is the Senate. In 1916, a fire started in the reading room. The only room that was spared was the library and that was because a clerk had the foresight to close the metal doors to the library.
A view of the library. It took about four years to rebuild the building. The immersion tour is free. You just need to book in advance. You can also get a guided tour of the senate or house of commons if you book in advance. It is free as well. We did that but then I guess the house was in session so they cancelled the tour.
This beautiful structure is Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica. It is the oldest and largest church in Ottawa. Built in 1841-1843, the two steeples were added in 1842.
A quick peek inside the church. It's very pretty. You had to pay to go in, which I thought a little weird for a church.
This sculpture is called Maman and it is creepy! It's right in front of the National Gallery of Canada and it looks like it's headed straight for John.
In the atrium of the National Gallery of Canada. You can see the Ottawa River in the background. It's a cool museum. Lots of portraits/paintings done by artists that I've heard of and some really cool ones by artists that I hadn't heard of.
This is the United States Embassy. It is the most expensively built embassy in Canada at $200M USD. The soil that it sits on was imported from the United States so it is literally on US soil.
The Canada War Museum starts back with the First Peoples and walks that history of Canadians at war forward. Basically, the French came first and Canada was called New France. The French were actually nice to the First Peoples and they fought together during the seven years war against the British. Unfortunately, they lost. France ceded the land to Britain after the seven years war (1756 - 1763). That's probably not exactly all that happened but I'm summarizing the big things.
During the American Revolution, a lot of the loyalists moved to Canada. You don't really think of Canadians being at war but they were. They fought in WWI (this exhibit represents being in the trenches) and were in World War II almost from the beginning! Like us, they provided supplies, war planes, tanks, etc., but they also had soldiers there.
This is the Holocaust Memorial. The photo doesn't do it justice. The picture on that wall is of the barbed-wire electric fence that encircled Auschwitz-Birkenau. An estimated 96,000 Jews and 120,000 Poles, Roma and Sinti, and other people were murdered in Auschwitz. The memorial is very moving.
The last Tim Horton's coffee.
We both loved it up there and hope to explore the country a little more. It’s very underrated as a vacation and it’s so close!
So until next time, Good day, eh!
This group was our favorite. It's a family of "beggars". And it's really a family that is participating. We went to dinner later that day and they were seated across from us.
