Cool day in Toronto today or the T-dot as the locals sometimes call it. I think that is because the abbreviation for Toronto is T.O. This morning Rob and I went off on a mission, we got distracted by a store on the way and I brought another hoodie, so I went back to the apartment to drop it off, rather than carry it around town. We then caught a subway down to the waterfront. We were going to catch a ferry over to Toronto Island Park, but when we got there, there were about 500 people waiting so we decided against that and wander the waterfront instead. We then came across a small boat service doing an hour tour of the harbour, and had an option to drop you off on the island on the way, so we decided we would do that instead. It was cool, I enjoy a good boat trip.
Toronto Island is cool; it’s really pretty with heaps of gardens and stuff, and an old carnival park. When we got over to the island we wanted some lunch. There were a couple of crappy places to get food by the amusement rides, but we decided to do a half hour walk to the nicer place that the captain of the boat recommended. Rob and I joked around that it was probably half an hour for a fat American, but the joke was on us – cause it was actually a half hour walk. It was worth it though as the lunch was really good. Rob had some Calamari and I had a pulled pork sandwich. The island had great views back towards the city, apparently it was really popular in the 1920’s because Canada didn’t have the prohibition laws that the States did at that time, so heaps of Americans would go over to get pissed. They used to have hotels and even a baseball stadium, but got rid of lots of stuff and made it into a park. The baseball stadium was the first place that Babe Ruth ever hit a home run, as a 19 year old rookie pitcher, which is pretty out of it.
We jumped back on the ferry to head back as Joan had another 1 on 1 session at Apple, and Rob wanted to go along as well. Once back on the mainland we passed the Air Canada Centre, so I inquired about how much the tour was. I decided I would go on it while R & J had the 1 on 1. It turns out that I am really glad that I did. The Air Canada Centre is the home of the Toronto Maple Leafs (Ice Hockey Team) and the Toronto Raptors (NBA Basketball team), they also have concerts there and Britney Spears and Nicki Minaj played the night before. It was a great tour, behind the scenes. They had a big statue out the front that has spotlights that light up the sky, its is decorated with stars and the guy said that it is stars rather than maple leafs because the owners of the Maple Leafs brought a constellation and named it the “Maple Leaf Constellation’” - I know??? Who buys stars right? And who gets the money from said purchase. Well apparently you can, www.nameastarlive.com. Here is what the website says; Starting at $19.95, Name A Star Live is a wonderful, unique gift that people everywhere for Father's Day. Everyone loves having a star named† after them. It's a meaningful and symbolic gift - perfect for Fathers Day, a graduation, a birthday, anniversary, baby shower, thanks to a client or top employee, or just a fun & touching way to say "you're special." Sounds like a crock of shit to me, and reminds me of the story of the guy in New York, that sold heaps of bridges and shit to people, and more than once. Anyway, I got to stand at centre court of an NBA team stadium, which to me was pretty special. I also learnt that every team in the NBA has to get a new floor/court every four years, to make sure they are up to scratch. The Raptors are updating theirs for the upcoming season. We were also shown a video of how they change the stadium from an Ice Hockey venue to a Basketball venue and then concerts; it’s pretty amazing and takes about 8 hours between each change over. Another buzzy fact is that people can buy a license to one of the season ticket seats. It costs $82 thousand dollars to secure it and that is before you pay for any of the actual tickets. The $82 thousand means you get first option on any tickets going for games or concerts; the waiting list to secure these seats is twenty years. The money that must go through the place is incredible. We were told about the different prices for seats around the stadium, corporate boxes and executive suites – it is all totally insane. The Maple Leafs haven’t won a Stanley Cup for forty years or something, but games have been sold out for ages – as they are such a popular team (which makes sense as Toronto is the biggest city in Canada).
After the tour I took a subway back to the apartment and met up with Rob and Joan. We had a nice home cooked meal here, and packed up our luggage and cleaned up and stuff as we have an early start in the morning. We have a taxi coming to pick us up at 6.15am for our flight to Boston, and arrive in Boston at 10.30am. So Canada has been great fun, but it’s back to the US of A for me. Yeeehaaa!
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