Oh Canada (Part II)

As I stated in this post, I recently left the country for the first time to visit Toronto and Niagara Falls. To see my adventures through Niagara Falls, see Part I. 

To pick up on the crazy whirlwind saga where I left off, we departed from Niagara Falls around 11 am and made it to Toronto in the early afternoon. We had completed all of the tours/boat rides/souvenir shopping we needed to in the early hours of the morning (we woke up at 6 am!!) and then managed to pack everything up and hit the road. There's only about an hour's drive between Niagara and Toronto so we weren't in the car for a long time, but my dad managed to surprise us with movies to watch on the future trek home: The Grand Budpest Hotel for me and The Lego Movie for my brother. Needless to say we were thrilled.

When we arrived in Toronto, we weren't sure if we could check into the hotel, but we gave it a shot anyways. 10 minutes later, the car was parked (a feat in the city...but parking in a garage meant $$) and we were heaving our luggage into our hotel room. After freshening up, we walked a mere block to the Sky Dome stadium where the Blue Jays were playing and bought upper deck seats to watch the game.

And then, at the end of the game, the dome closed!!

{My mom snapped a few shots driving into/through the city from the front seat. I loved the glass condo buildings}

{Nerding out over the engineering masterpiece that is the sky dome}

{Playing with the zoom}

{the CN tower as viewed from the stadium}

After a quick sushi dinner and a half gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream (we picked up a carton of it on a corner store after dinner as it would be cheaper over the course of the two nights than going out for ice cream...and we could have as much as we wanted), we hit the sack. 

The next morning, all of us were able to sleep in (thank god) and take our time getting ready for a visit to the Toronto Zoo. 

{Jaguar, not leopard}

{See how the stripes are brown? That shows that THIS zebra is a baby}

{My mom thought the flowers matched my shorts}

{See the baby gorilla? 5 weeks old!!}

The zoo was really nice. They had every animal imaginable: From capybaras and jaguars to 2 types of rhinos, moose, and every monkey and lemur under the sun.
After the zoo (where I earned myself a decidedly painful and unattractive sun burn), we freshened up and made our way to the CN tower where we had reservations for the rotating restaurant at the top.

From there we watched the sunset and enjoyed a decidedly delicious yet pricey meal.
The next morning, we packed up and checked out a castle just outside of the city known as Casa Loma

{The setting for a Canadian Downton Abbey}

From there we went window shopping until the Royal Ontario Museum opened. We made our way through the museum buy 1 and hit the road. Our last stop was State College, Pennsylvania. There, we visited Penn's Cave and I went on my first college tour at Penn State!
By the way, if you're ever in that area, go to Berkey Creamery. Penn State has their own cows that they use to make all sorts of dairy goods that taste like heaven on earth. We brought 3 tubs of ice cream home with us if that tells you anything about how amazing it is.

All in all, this trip was exquisitely fun and we got to experience so many new things and visit some amazing new places. I can't wait to do some more traveling and sightseeing in the near future.
xoxo
HBM