We headed out for our second trip, and the last one Ross would join me on, for his first trip into Canada. We had plans for the Women’s World Cup in Ottawa, a quick stop to see Niagara Falls, and then off to Toronto to enjoy some time and to allow me to finally come home. I had not been back to Canada since 2006, which was my origin story as a Blue Jays fan. Back then, the stadium was still the Skydome, not Rogers Centre, and there was no chance that Toronto would have gone as deep as they would end up going into the playoffs in 2015.
So, we headed from homebase directly north and crossed into Canada at Thousand Islands, where we stopped to take in the views before heading on our way to Ottawa, where our campsite directed us to a beautiful pub on the water before we went to spend our time with the Women’s World Cup.
World Cup
We actually ended up in Ottawa twice, with our trips to Niagara and Canada in between the sets of group play in the Ottawa stadium that year. We watched all the matches for the group there: Norway, Thailand, Germany, and Côte d’Ivoire. It was Côte d’Ivoire’s débutant (first) appearance and a dominant display by Germany, but we enjoyed every moment. We experienced a double hat trick in one match and found a pub just outside the stadium that we enjoyed much of our downtime.
After the matches, we walked through Ottawa, often searching for important buildings, like the ministries of the national government, and even came across embassy row, which is always a fun place to be during an international event.
Niagara Falls
The trip to Niagara was extremely short, just long enough for my best friend to get his feel. It was a very nice day though, which I can’t say about the last time I visited (taking my mother for the first time in 2019). We got some good shots on this little detour and made the rest of the way to Toronto.
Toronto
Toronto was also relatively short, before we made our way back to Ottawa for our final matches. We did spend a good deal of time at the Hockey Hall of Fame, my best friend convinced me to do the CN Tower again (I have gone up the tower 3 times now, and it never gets any easier), and we returned to my baseball mecca.
The most notable part of the game was actually the group of guys in front of us getting kicked out late in the game. It had clearly been a guys’ night and they showed up pretty rowdy, but it would take a while before they got out of hand. While they didn’t end up disturbing us much (aside from their yelling), likely because we were behind them, it is, to this day, still the only time I’ve seen fans ejected from a game in-person.
Once we returned to Ottawa for our last few matches, we made our trip back to home base, where I had to bid my best friend adieu but, thankfully, got to continue my travels.
Raven K 