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In any world menu, Canada must be considered the vichyssoise of nations. It is cold, half- French, and difficult to stir.
— Stuart Keate
So when I said last time that I hoped it wouldn’t take me two weeks to blog the next leg of our vacation, what I really meant was, “See you in 6 weeks!” Sorry.
Anyway, we left Buffalo Thursday morning – another beautiful day – and headed north. We crossed the border with no problem and checked into our hotel, which was connected to the Rogers Centre where the Blue Jays would play that night. We immediately set out on foot for the Hockey Hall of Fame; David’s been wanting to go there for a long time. Of course, I made him pose for pictures:
But I got in on it too!
There was so much to see, but the crown jewel is the Stanley Cup, which we got our picture taken with:
Then we wandered our way around town a bit before heading back toward our hotel and the CN Tower. This is what it looks like from the ground:
Wow, right? Well, we decided to go to the top. David, who is afraid of heights, was a good sport on the way up, even though the elevator has glass peephole in the floor:
But that was nothing compared to the glass floor at the top, which freaked even me out:
There were a ton of kids up there, and none of them were scared; they were lying all over the glass floor, face down, or running back and forth all over it. I could barely look down, but I forced myself to walk across the glass part once.
Then we took in the view, which was amazing.
I took a panoramic “stitch” shot with my camera, but I don’t actually know how to stitch them together to show you (that’s part of #78 on my list – learn three features of my digital camera; haven’t gotten around to it yet!) so you’ll just have to take my word for it.
We headed back to the hotel for a few minutes to rest before heading downstairs, out the door, and around the corner to the baseball stadium to see the hometown Toronto Blue Jays take on the Evil Empire, aka the New York Yankees.
With apologies to Karen, who is a Red Sox fan, here are some photos of some famous Yankees:
Jeter
Rodriguez
Damon
Posada
Our seats were about 4 rows up from the field. At one point, A-Rod chased a pop up into foul territory and ran smack into a Canadian police woman. What’s awesome about that? Well, in one of those pictures, you can sort of see me and David! Here, I’ll show you:
Great, right? We’re famous! Anyway, the game was just ok, really, and the Yankees trounced the Jays, but I was psyched to complete my goal of seeing three games in three different stadiums.
All in all, I really enjoyed our trip. We definitely did not have enough time to do everything we wanted to do, so we are planning a return trip at some point. You can check out the rest of my Toronto pictures on Flickr, if you like!
A journey is best measured in friends, not in miles.
– Tim Cahill
So when we last left off, David and I had collapsed into bed in our beautiful European-inspired hotel room in Chicago. That was Monday night. Tuesday morning we prepared to head back to Detroit. I had hoped to somehow meet up with Jane on our way out of town, but she had her own adventure to tend to, so we didn’t get the chance. Instead, David drove us along Lake Shore Drive to head out of the city on another beautiful day in Chicago so I could see the waterfront and Soldier Field and Comiskey Park (which isn’t called Comiskey Park anymore, but whatever). It was lovely. We stopped for breakfast at what David tells me is the only rest stop (anywhere?) that’s built on an overpass (that is, it serves both sides of the big highway). He tried to win me a Nintendo DS from a game machine, but didn’t have any luck. Oh well.
By the time we got back to Detroit, we had just enough time to change and grab the tickets and David’s brother and head downtown to Comerica Park to watch the Tigers take on the hated Cleveland Indians. I had walked around the outside of Comerica at Christmastime, but this was my first time inside. I immediately went to the team store to purchase a Tigers visor so I could credibly root for the home team (and without betraying my Braves – the Tigers are in the AL).
We walked around the stadium so I could see everything, and I even got the boys to ride the mini baseball Ferris wheel with me!
I also got a half-yard frozen daquiri, but that is neither here nor there. We then got a beer and something to eat (I had egg rolls. Egg rolls! At a baseball stadium! And chili-cheese fries. Breakfast of champions.) before settling into our seats.
David’s dad snared excellent seats down the right field line off Stub Hub, and during warm ups, I looked up and who did I see? One Grady Sizemore, centerfielder for the Indians, stretching and jogging not 20 yards from me! He’s hot, let me tell you.
Once David figured out what I was doing, he tried to take my camera away, but I didn’t let him. It’s my duty to take pictures of hot baseball players, and I take that responsibility very seriously.
The game itself was great – the Tigers won – and we headed home to do a little laundry and fall in to bed.
Wednesday morning, we packed up and got back in the car, this time headed for a little town just northeast of Buffalo, New York. My cousin was to be married Saturday, and Wednesday evening was her bridal shower (she, and a lot of wedding guests, was from out of town, but nearly the entirety of our moms’ side of the family lives in this town, which is why the shower was there and so close to the wedding). Since she had asked me to be in her wedding, I needed to be at the shower that evening, so we left around 9 or so and headed for the border. The Canadian border.
As David is fond of telling me, if you head due south from Detroit, the first foreign country you come to is Canada. Going through Canada would save us several hours, assuming the border crossing didn’t take long, and time was of the essence that day, so with our passports in hand, we made a quick entrance into the Great White North.
We had a lovely Canadian day. First, we had breakfast at Tim Horton’s. Donuts, yum. Then we stopped at Canadian Tire. It’s hard to explain Canadian Tire – it’s a little like a KMart crossed with an auto parts store, I guess, but David has been talking about it as long as I’ve known him, so we had to go.
We found Canada t-shirts there, on sale for $8.99 (or “Nine dough-lers” as David was fond of saying), red for him, white for me. Then we stopped for lunch at Harvey’s, a Canadian fast food joint. This one was located inside a Home Depot. Thank goodness for GPS. Our burgers were delicious, and people in Canada are so friendly!
We made an equally smooth entrance back into the U.S., and made our way through the Western New York countryside on a gorgeous afternoon, and I honestly don’t know if there’s any better place to be. We got to my aunt’s around 3:30 and David encountered the first wave of family introductions. The shower was girls-only, so I left him there to await my uncle, the District Attorney, who had agreed to take David and Steve (the boyfriend of one of the other bridesmaids) out to dinner. He was not happy that I couldn’t be there for the introductions; I’m sure he had Sopranos-like visions of my Italian uncle picking him and “going for a ride,” but he was a good sport.
The shower was lovely; my aunts did an amazing job, as always. Afterwards, my cousin and I and one of the bridesmaids went to find the boys in town. We walked into the restaurant only to see my grandpa holding court at their table. I hadn’t expected him to be there, but I should have guessed he would be. We attempted to pull up a table to their booth to join them, but the waitresses stopped us, which was not a good idea. My grandpa doesn’t like to be told no. Next thing you know, the wait staff is dealing with an ornery old man, and my cousin and I are laughing our heads off because this is so typical. I think David might have been scared, though.
In the end, we took the booth behind them, and my grandpa came to sit with us for a bit. He told me how much he’d enjoyed talking to David and how glad he was that I’d brought him. Made me so happy. One of my aunts showed up and then the 6 of us – me and David, my cousin, my aunt, the bridesmaid and her boyfriend – headed to the only bar in town to catch up some more and play some darts. And with the exception of the boys, I can tell you that all of us are supremely bad dart players.
It was, however, a lot of laughs. I love my family, and I love how seamlessly David fits into it.
Around 11, we headed back to my aunt’s house where we were staying and fairly collapsed into bed, again. First, though, we had to repack a small bag, because in the morning, we were headed back to Canada: Toronto. I’ll tell you all about Day 7 next time (which, hopefully, will not be two weeks from now)!
I had a total 36-hour love affair with Chicago. It started with our hotel, the Raffaello, where we got a great last-minute rate on hotels.com, especially considering how close it is to Michigan Avenue. It was very European (fairly small lobby, very small elevators), but we had a beautiful room with a flat screen tv and DVD player. My favorite part was the bathroom: it had one of those rain shower heads, where the water falls directly down on top of you; there was no tub, only a shower, and only half a glass door – part of the shower (the part away from the showerhead) was completely open to the rest of the bathroom; and it had a bowl sink, one of those that sits up on the counter. Perfect.
Since we arrived close to 1 am, we slept in a bit on Monday before heading over to Michigan Avenue to see the sights and head down to Navy Pier. It was a gorgeous day, and it wasn’t too long until we came across people engaged in what has to be one of the top-ten jobs I don’t want:
Skyscraper window-washing. NO. WAY.
We hung a left to head toward Navy Pier. The first time and only time prior to this that I had been in Chicago was 10 years ago, when the amusement park I worked for was going to open a Bubba Gump’s in the park. They sent me and my boss to the Bubba Gump’s in Navy Pier for training, since I would be managing the restaurant. Here it is:
Navy Pier is pretty touristy, but I wanted to ride the giant Ferris wheel, because I like being touristy, so we pressed on. Before we got to the Ferris wheel, though, we passed several outfits offering boat tours and decided that would be a great way to see the city. We opted for the SeaDog Architectural Tour that would take us down the Chicago River through the city and tell us about some of the buildings we’d see, and it included a “speedboat portion” out on Lake Michigan at the end. It was totally worth it – we learned all about the big buildings, many of which are quite iconic, and our tour guide was very funny (and punny, too!). There are too many pictures to share here, but you can check out my Chicago album on Flikr if you like. Here’s a couple of my favorites:
By the time we got back, it was lunchtime, so we set off in search of some authentic deep-dish pizza. We eschewed Uno’s in favor of Gino’s East which I had seen on our drive in the night before, and after consulting the GPS on David’s BlackBerry, we made it there without any trouble. It takes a looooong time to cook deep-dish, so we had an appetizer while we waited and I wrote “Melanie loves David” amidst all the (management-sanctioned) graffiti on the walls. The pizza was DEFinitely worth the wait – it was SO good and really hit the spot.
We had hoped to hit Millennium Park, but lunch took longer than we thought, so we just took a short walk back to the hotel to rest a bit before the game. David, who seems to know how to everywhere no matter where we are, led us to the El, where we hopped a train to Wrigley Field. I was SO excited – it’s one of the stadiums I’ve really wanted to go to (when I was in Chicago before, the Cubs were out of town, so we saw the White Sox and what was then Comiskey Park). I had to get the iconic shot, of course:
Then we headed inside. I really loved this stadium. Everyone was so friendly, and although it was packed (Cubs fans are die-hard, you know), it didn’t feel busy – the lines for concessions and bathrooms were not long at all. The only sad part was no Dippin’ Dots. David and I get Dippin’ Dots at every baseball game we go to, and Wrigley was the first we’ve encountered that didn’t have them. Oh well.
(David is not betraying his Tigers – he buys a hat of the home team at every stadium he goes to. He even has a Yankees cap. Boo.)
Oh, if you don’t follow baseball, you might not know that a seat at Wrigley Field can be a tough get. Some enterprising homeowners have made it a little easier:
That’s rooftop seating on Waveland Avenue, which runs behind left field. Clever, huh? There’s also a bunch behind right field.
Ok, maybe the best thing about Wrigley Field, for me, was the rediscovery of something I first saw (and haven’t seen since) at Comiskey Park 10 years ago:
It’s onion grinder for your hot dog! Fresh onion! Right there in Wrigley! David thinks I’m silly, but I dig this so much!
Unfortunately, the Cubbies went down to the Astros, but a good time was definitely had by all.
We took the El back, but intentionally switched trains to ride a little longer and see what we could see before heading back to the hotel. We pretty much collapsed into (the awesome, comfortable) bed when we got back, so that’s really all there is to tell for now!
Day 5 is heading back to Detroit and the Tigers game, and Day 6 has us crossing the border into Canada on our way to Buffalo, so check back later this week to continue our journey!
Young men should travel, if but to amuse themselves.
– Byron
Lots to show and tell, but no energy to do it right now. In lieu of an actual story-telling post, I give you the following pictures:
And I’m sorry I missed posting Three Things last week; we were out and about in Toronto and time got away from me. I promise a double shot this week, though!
If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep score?
– Vince Lombardi
Yahoo! We did it! We finally won our first game! 16-11! And I hit a double, and had an RBI, and fielded some balls out in right field! And kept a mean scorebook during the innings the subs were in! Yay!
P.S. I just made up the title to this post. I don’t actually know if we’ve played 13 games and lost twelve, but I know we’ve lost every game we’ve played until tonight, so I just picked a number out of thin air. I suspect I’m not too far off.
You need three things in the theater – the play, the actors, and the audience – and each must give you something.
– Kenneth Haigh
I’m really pushing it today to get this in under the wire. As it is, my posts on Reader make it look like I missed a day and posted twice on the 24th, but I swear that’s Reader’s fault for not updating in a timely manner and not mine!
Today, we finally got to go see Second City’s Barack Stars. There was a snafu with the tickets last weekend and we didn’t get to see it then, but we got it all worked out for today. The theater was quite small – intimate, I believe is the proper term – and every seat was filled. The show – the parts I could understand – was great. But there was a lot of fast talking and dropped punchlines (you know, how sometimes you lower your voice at the end of a joke to make it sound funnier?), and, of course, laughter that obscured some lines, so it was enjoyable, frustrating, and sad for me all at once. David, though, was cracking up the whole time, and he’s been having such a crappy, busy time at work the last month or so, so it was so great to see him smile and laugh for two hours straight. The best line of the show? “Honey, what do you think about this abortion bill?” “Pay it.”
At the end, after the show, the actors – there were six of them – came back on stage to do a little improv exercise. They sent two of them (one man, one woman) out of the room, and the others asked the audience for three words – we came up with bodacious, legerdemain, and conjugate. The other two came back in, and in teams of three (men v. women), the two that had heard us choose the words had to act out each of the three words. It was like the very best game of charades I’ve ever seen. A lot of fun to watch.
We just got back from playing putt-putt at the hardest course I’ve ever played. Remember back in September, I planned a date weekend for me and David that included miniature golf? And remember how I won, and David kept insisting I cheated (because he’s a sore loser – though he’s totally teasing)? So this was a rematch, and man, did I ever tank. Though I was, again, the only one of us to score a hole in one (and I got to yell “Get in the hole” like the spectators do at real live golf events), I still lost by eleven strokes. I’m not even kidding. But David was happy so that was good. I’ve been kicking his behind at tennis for three weeks running (10-4, 10-8, 6-4) and on the way home tonight he said, “Finally, I beat you at something besides thumb wrestling.” Hee. For the record, he also beats me at arm wrestling and checkers. Like, kicks my ass at checkers so badly it makes me cry.
Anyway, it’s bedtime now. Maybe I’ll get some reading in. I’m reading My Sister’s Keeper by Jodie Picoult because I want to see the movie and I know the movie ends differently from the book, so I want to be able to compare them. Have a great Monday, everyone – see you tomorrow!
The only difference between baseball and softball is that when you get hit by a softball, it leaves a bigger mark.
– Unknown
I don’t even know if I have the energy to tell you today’s story the way I want to. It’s 9pm, and I just got home, and I walked a hundred miles today, and I’m so, so tired, and I haven’t eaten dinner yet (I’m waiting for David, who is still at work – this is the third night in a row he’s been this late).
Anyway, I think I told you I play on a rec league softball team. If I didn’t, well, I do. Mostly it’s people from work, but also some other people who are friends with the team captain (who works where I do). We are terrible. There’s no way around it. We’ve been playing since early May, every week (give or take several rainouts), and we still haven’t won a game. Today we lost 22-1, and even that was a mercy-rule shortened game.
The thing is, there’s no reason we should be so bad. On paper, our team looks good – we have several excellent players and even most of our girls are decent to good (including me). The problem seems to be, though, that the majority of the boys want to do EVerything even when there’s a perfectly capable girl “in the way.” This often results in miscommunication, miscues, missed cut-offs, etc. The boys also seem to get overly excited when the ball comes to them and their inner Major Leaguer comes out and they try to do stuff like field the ball on the run rather than make sure they have it in their glove before trying to throw it.
We look like the god damned Bad News Bears out there, and while it was funny for a while, now I’m just pissed. It’s not really fun anymore. I nearly walked off the field tonight (where I was playing – uselessly – in right field, which I hate, because it’s the “girl’s” spot and I’m better than that; usually I play second base) because people just do not pay attention or realize that we could be a lot better if people would just take their time and make smarter, more controlled plays.
Beyond the sucktasticness of the team, the other problem is, we always seem to play at fields that are miles from anywhere. Tonight I walked 45 minutes from my office to get to the field. Sure, I could have taken the Metro to a stop that would have put me a 30-minute walk away, but since that stop is on a different line from my work stop, I’d have had to change trains and probably waste the fifteen minutes waiting for the other line. Truthfully, I don’t mind the walk there usually, because I look at it as an opportunity to get exercise and warm up for the game, but after the game when I’m tired and it’s late and I’ve got to walk back to the Metro a hundred miles, it’s not so appealing.
I’m not a quitter, though, and I believe that, as an adult, if you make a committment to something, you see it through to the end. Besides, there are only about 5 games left. And I love softball, but that’s a really generous description of what our team plays each week, so I don’t know if that’s enough to tip the scales, because, on the other hand, I have sort of come to dread Tuesdays, and that’s not good for anyone. So, I need to really think about this and decide what I’m going to do.
That’s baseball, and it’s my game. Y’know, you take your worries to the game and you leave ‘em there. You yell like crazy for your guys. It’s good for your lungs, it gives you a lift, and nobody calls the cops. Pretty girls, lots of ‘em.
– Humphrey Bogart
So remember this? My little story from about a year ago about watching my Braves collapse yet again while I’m in attendance? Yeah, it nearly happened again Friday night in Atlanta. The tickets and trip were my birthday present from David; I’ve longed to see the Braves play in Atlanta, so he made it happen.
We flew in Friday afternoon and headed to the stadium around 5:30. As you can tell by the picture, the weather was looking ominous; I wasn’t even sure they’d get to play at all. Derek Lowe, the Braves’ new ace, was on the mound for the home opener, and he’d recorded 5 strikeouts through three innings and the Braves were up 3-1. After two pitches in the top of the 4th, the game was delayed due to rain. And then hail. And then the left field grass flooded. And then it poured some more.
But the rain let up and the super-awesome grounds crew went to work, and after more than two hours, play resumed at around 10:40. I don’t remember many of the details, except that in the top of the 9th inning, with the Braves leading 5-4, our closer – why can we not find a decent closer? – gave up the tying run (after the relievers had already allowed three additional runs prior to that). I’m not going to lie: I teared up. No actual tears fell, but it was close.
You have no idea how into this game I was. I love these boys, and I rise and fall with them all season long. And being at Turner Field for the home opener felt a little like coming home – I had my McCann jersey on, and my hat, and for the first time ever, I got to do the Tomahawk Chop – in person – with 40,000 other people. That was amazing. And having never seen them win in person, I was *this* close, and it felt like it was slipping away.
I was on edge the rest of the inning til they got the third out. I couldn’t Chop with the rest of the fans or yell or cheer – I was standing, bouncing up and down on the balls of my feet with my hands over my face, barely breathing.
We couldn’t get a run in the bottom of the ninth, so we went into extra innings. We managed to hold them in the 10th, but just barely. David and I had moved down to about 20 rows from the field by now, and being so close to the action was exhilarating. When Schafer hit his single in the 10th, I screamed like a lunatic. When he got bunted over to second by the pinch hitter, I yelled and cheered. When Johnson hit a line drive just over the infielders’ heads, I screamed wildly as Shafer raced around third and headed for home. When he slid into home plate and the umpire signaled he was safe, I lost my mind, jumping up and down, whooping. And then a tear or two really did escape: They’d done it; they’d finally done it! David was looking at me with the biggest smile on his face – knowing how happy I was made him happy.
At 1:26 in the morning on Saturday, my wish came true. I could not have been more excited. As we exited the stadium, the fans started another round of the Tomahawk Chop, and I joined in at the top of my lungs, thrilled to be a part of something so much bigger than I am: Braves fandom.
Some people think that football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious than that.
– Bill Shankly
Today, of course, is the Super Bowl. The Cardinals of Arizona take on the Steelers of Pittsburgh in a battle between the NFL’s best defense and one of the league’s top offenses. I’m rooting for the Cardinals, despite their having beaten my beloved Eagles to reach this point, because I love an underdog and a Cinderella story, but I expect the Steelers to bring it home for a record sixth time. What say you?
The bowling alley is the poor man’s country club.
– Sanford Hansell
These are the rad bowling shoes David got me for Christmas:
They were actually kind of a joke, but I love them so much! David bowls in a league (I was disappointed to discover they do not wear matching shirts), and a couple of months ago, I was with him at the pro shop when he was having some work done on his balls (hee), and they had a wall full of bowling shoes. I never knew that the bowling shoes real bowlers wear don’t look anything like the bowling shoes you rent at the bowling alley.
Anyway, they had four or five different ones like this – black with red flames, white with blue flames, black with blue flames, white with pink flames, etc – and these. I jokingly suggested to David that he get the black ones with the red flames and that I get the white ones with the purple flames, and then we could be that couple at the bowling alley with the matching bowling shoes. We laughed and that was it. Little did I know – well, actually I did figure it out – that he went and bought those shoes for me!
We bowled with his friends while we were in Michigan – every last one of them was better than me, even in my fancy new shoes. Turns out, the shoes don’t improve your game – that takes actual practice.
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