This weekend was the annual Doors Open Toronto weekend. This was my third year taking part, once a few years back before I moved overseas, and last year. They try to alter the theme and venues each year.As this year Toronto is hosing the Pan Am Games in July the theme was athletics and sporting venues, although there are many historical buildings mixed in. The venues are spread all across the city though the more historical ones are downtown.The same venues are n...

For my return flight to Toronto I had the first row where the 3 seaters become 2. This leaves a corner of extra storage room so more like having 1.5 seats. Boarding the plane was a bit unorganized.First we had to stand in line at the gate to have our passports checked as Canada/US are tight on visa controls now. Once they checked they told us to sit down and wait again. The line was so long as they had to check every passenger on the flight.Then they announced bo...

My epic two week adventure from St Petersburg, Finland, the Baltics, and Sweden was now coming to an end. I had a morning flight from Stockholm to Frankfurt before connecting to my Toronto flight.I had done my online checkin and chose the back window seat but when I tried to print my boarding card it moved me a few rows up and my seat was taken.There were no views of Stockholm on take off but we did circle round Arlanda Airport so one last look at the terminal an...

For my final night in Sweden and of my trip I had discovered a rather unique airport hotel. First I had to take the train and bus back from the town centre to the airport to catch the airport shuttle to the hotel.I had left my bag in the ship hotel this morning and was a bit glad to be leaving. The floors were slanted causing disorientation after my two nights stay and the ship can sometimes bob so I wanted to be on solid even ground. I also used their wifi to do...

A few blocks from the Swedish History Museum was the Army Museum. Even though I was tired and some drizzle started I was going to take my chances and see if it was open today for the public holiday. Fortunately it was and they were also charging admission as I had paid for a three day tourist pass, some places were closed today, and some allowed free entry due to the holiday so I could recover some of the cost of the pass.The museum spanned the last few centuries...