All photos from our first day in Canadia are available on Flickr.
After a restful night at the Wellesley Inn we hit the road for Canada. It was a short ride to our first stop of the day at Niagara Falls. Both Peter and I were excited for our interrogation at the border but it did not live up to expectations. We told the border guard about the trip and she said that a lot of people come through who are doing the same thing. She then asked if we were going to Montreal too and we had to inform her that the team had moved. Then we were on our way.After paying an obscene $18 for parking, we spent an hour and a half walking around and taking pictures. We then hit the gift shop and Peter found a Niagara Falls baseball to add to his collection. We also saw a shop selling "Canada Eh!" T-shirts but we were unable to find parking nearby so we'll have to look here in Toronto.
It was pretty hot and a little
moist and there isn't really a lot to do at the Falls so we moved on to Toronto. We had our eyes out for a cheap hotel on the roadside but were unable to find one. So we rolled over to the train station hoping to find a coupon book like we did in Rochester. We didn't find one but we did find a travelers information center that helped us book two beds at a cheap hostel for our stay in Toronto.
Upon check-in, we learned that the hostel was having a pub crawl that started in 45 minutes. So we quickly got cleaned up, got some Canadian scratch, and hit the town. We started out at a subterranean dive bar with ball on the TV, good food, and cheap lager. We quickly made friends with two guys from New York City - Henry and Cam - and we each took down a pitcher of beer. We then made our way to another bar with pumping music and more expensive beer. The group then hit a third bar with dancing and pool, but beer at this place was more expensive still so the four of us went back to the first bar and enjoyed two more $8 pitchers. We capped off the evening with a taxi ride back to the hotel and crashed to rest up for another big day in Canada.
touch with baseball when his childhood heroes Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, and Jim Gantner retired but the Great Home Run Chase of 1998 reignited his passion. As a student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Erik became involved with the campus chapter of Habitat for Humanity. With this group Erik traveled to Portland, OR and Baltimore, MD to work on construction projects and help the group raise $25,000 to partially sponsor a house in Milwaukee. Also at UWM, Erik met Peter Nagel. The two attended their first Brewers game together during Opening Weekend 2003. Despite their failure to ignite the coals at their first tailgate, the two had a blast and were soon making weekly trips to the ballpark. Erik has gone on to several colleges and changed careers several times, and has moved all the way out to New Hampshire, but has always stayed true to his baseball roots by holding part-time stadium usher jobs. To this day he looks back fondly on his incredible cross-country journey.
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