Fred and I took off to Toronto for the night. Why not, right? We got a sweet deal on NBA tickets and decided to do Airbnb to make a mini weekend trip out of it. Ever since I got my own car (Toyota Rav4) about 10 months ago we have been enjoying the luxury and freedom of being 20 with a car. Philadelphia/Pittsburg concerts as well as a previous trip to Canada were suddenly super realistic. Thanksgiving break provided us with the opportunity to go on another road trip. The planning for this trip started when Fred found a deal for Seat Geek tickets. $30 off your first purchase. So we each purchased a Raptors ticket for the seats next to each other which ended costing us $30 each. The Toronto Raptors were set to play the Washington Wizards in a 3:30pm game. The drive up was pleasant, only about five and a half hours. We made two nearly fatal mistakes on this trip that could have been really bad. First, we planned our departure for too late and realized like an hour into the drive that we were not going to arrive in Toronto until 4pm, so we would definitely miss some of the game. Second, we forgot our passports. Easily the two things one would take special precaution to avoid, we did. Fortunately for us, border patrol for Canada was super lax, and we still got to see half of the NBA game. For tickets that were half off it makes sense that we would just see half the game. Live and learn. I would rather forget my passport on the way to Canada where it doesn't actually matter than at the airport about to board an expensive international flight. These are both mistakes that neither of us will ever make again. The Raptors game was hype. Their whole "We the North" look is super cool, and it was awesome to watch live NBA basketball. Fred is hugely into the NBA (that is the understatement of the century) so it was really special to go see a game live. He has an encyclopedic-like knowledge of players, coaches, stats, history, rules, and more. I can ask any question imaginable and he will always have the answer, which is helpful because I am just getting into basketball. The game was pretty close until halfway through the 4th quarter, and it was fun when the home team won. Our plans for the night following the game originally included a ping pong (night)club. We went to SPiN which we had heard about from Facebook, and it certainly looked awesome. Only problem was that it was a Sunday night, so it was very dead, and the prices were way higher than we had thought based on what we saw on the website. We decided just to spend the evening at our dinner spot next door. Airbnb worked great for this trip, as it did with our last Canada trip. I have found Airbnb to be much better bang for your buck, and our apartment for this trip had its own parking space for us. We were able to uber cheaply from the bnb to the basketball game then back later in the evening, it was a convenient accommodation. On Monday we had ourselves a day getting back to State College. Before entering the states we parked near Niagara Falls for a half hour and took a little walk around. Niagara falls was cool for sure, but I was appalled by how much tourism was surrounding it. There were tons of hotels, casinos, museums, stores... it was all so Disney World-like. Entering back into the states with no passport was easy, they were fine with just a drivers license which was convenient for us. Our next stop was a tiny bit out of our way to visit Fred's family in upstate New York by the Finger Lakes. His family out there owns a winery, so we stopped there to see how harvest was going, as well as the winery's production and storage. It was quite the operation, there was so much going on inside of one huge barn, I had a really great time seeing the behind the scenes of the whole process. While with Fred's family we took a lunch trip to the Wienery, a goofy hot dog restaurant that I had only ever heard about. The stop in New York was awesome for splitting up the drive home- we had about 2.5 hours to walk around, see the winery, and visit with Fred's family. The rest of the drive home was easy and the whole trip back seemed a lot easier than the way there. Our 36 (or so) hours outside of State College were fun and restorative. We love getting out of town, especially when we can do it in a super cheap way like this trip. So at this point Fred and I have done Montreal, Quebec, and Toronto. Canada is awesome for a weekend trip, it is much more accessible than one would think! Upcoming travel plans include a few weeks in Killington, VT to ski and snowboard. Time to pray for snow!
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