Anyway, before this past Thursday, I had been on a plane once in my life, and it was when I was like 2. Sheltered life. The flight was pretty uneventful; the real fun began once we got to Pearson. You see, I was last in Toronto at age 5, and haven't really done any major travelling, and anything I've done has been to smaller places than Toronto, and has been done with someone driving me there, not flying. That airport is fucking huge for anyone (I assume), let alone a kid from little old PEI. I didn't know where the hell I was supposed to be walking or anything. Fortunately for us it was still like 8 in the morning, so it wasn't so incredibly busy that I had a panic attack or anything.
Our hotel was literally a block away from the dome, which is always convenient. Unfortunately that's far away from the airport. We had directions that we sort of followed, but we had hours to kill before our check-in time anyway, so the ensuing adventure of not taking the streetcar that would have led directly to our hotel wasn't really a huge deal. I'll know better next time I suppose.
We pretty much spent the next day and a half wandering around downtown without really knowing anything about anything. I mean you can walk around for hours and see a billion things, but I didn't really know what anything was in advance, and didn't really know how to get to a specific building or street or whatever.
Friday, we met up with a friend of mine at the game and ended up decently wasted. Seeing Roy Halladay bring the lineup card out was pretty cool, as was the ovation that he received. It was nothing compared to seeing him pitch on Saturday though. The Jose Bautista homer on Friday ended up in the section next to where we were sitting, and the ovations that he got for each of the taters he hit this weekend was a real highlight.
Anyway, during the Friday game right around the 4th inning, somewhere between beers and pees, we decided to stop by and see Gregg Zaun and Jamie Campbell at that little spot where they do their broadcasting thingy or whatever the shit that's called. Jamie was just sitting at his table spitting sunflower seeds in to a cup, just as useless as he'd typically be. Zaunny on the other hand, was signing autographs and taking pictures with kids. He finally got around to me, so I asked if I could get a picture for my blog, which I explained gave out Zaun-heads as player of the game trophies. His answer was "Oh yeah, I know you. HA!"
That shirt. By the end of the game, we along with the guys behind us, were nice and sauced, and took out our frustrations on the nearest Phillie, who happened to be Ben Francisco in LF. We chirped at him for the better part of the last 3 innings, much to the shagrin of everyone but us in the surrounding sections.
Anyway, we ended up pretty trashed by the end of the night, grabbed a shwarma, and passed out quickly at the hotel.
On Saturday we showed up nice and early for the game, taking in some batting practice and whatnot, while also complaining about the hangovers, the sun, and so on. That was the Halladay game of course, which was great fun, and will forever be known as the Rauch Freakout game. I've read somewhere (probably twitter) since then that John Farrell dislocated his jaw after that little scuffle, but I'll have to find somewhere to confirm that later. There was also a guy in front of us with a huge huge head that severely impeded our view at various times. If you were sitting in section 233 row 4 and have a huge head and are reading this, you need to go on a head diet.
We met up after the game with my girlfriend's cousin and his girlfriend, who had us to their apartment for food and drinks, and they also helped us negotiate our way both from and back to the downtown area for Sunday's game. Major thanks to Nick and Adriana for that one.
Sunday was a damn scorcher. There was approximately 0 wind, and a billion rays of sun beating directly down on my seat before the game. I forgot to put sunscreen on my kneecaps and upper ears before we left, so those got beaten pretty badly in terms of burns. Oh, and that was probably the most exciting end to a ballgame that I've ever seen. I got the Bautista homer on tape, which is still on my girlfriend's blackberry that she's conveniently brought to work with her.
After this game, we caught up with my aunt and uncle, who chauffeured us around the city for a while pointing out things that we didn't know about buildings and stuff, and then brought us back to their place for beers and a barbecue with that whole crew, and got us back to the airport safely yesterday, where we watched the Jays beat the Red Sox.
On the flight home, we flew directly above/beside a lightning storm, which was really awesome.
I'll update this with videos of things that happened when the girl gets them on to the internet.
More later. Probably.
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