Women's World Cup Journal: A walk on the not-wild side

For more photos, videos and anecdotes from my travels across Canada, follow me on Twitter (@thegoalkeeper) and Snapchat (jtannenwald).

WINNIPEG, Manitoba - Taking the public bus system around the city instead of driving everywhere has proven to be a smart decision so far.

For one thing, a week's worth of bus fares has cost me a grand total of $36.30. And that's in Canadian dollars, not U.S., so the real cost to me is less.

For another, I've been able to actually pay attention to the scenery I've been passing by, instead of having to focus solely on the road in front of me.

That was never more true than on Wednesday, when I had to take two buses to get from the city center to the U.S. women's team's training session at a club soccer facility on the south side of town.

I put the address in my phone, got the route, walked two blocks from my hotel to the bus stop, and got on board. The bus rolled past the Manitoba legislature, over the Assiniboine River, and through a commercial strip with what looked like some intriguing restaurants.

Everything was going smoothly until I decided to switch apps out of the live map and into Twitter, where I came across a few articles I wanted to skim.

Naturally, I missed my stop.

I scrambled to pull the stop request cord right as the bus moved away from where I had intended to get off. Fortunately, I was able to disembark just a block later. I was in front of a school athletics complex, with a barn-shaped gym at the other end of a field carved out with a baseball diamond. The surrounding residential neighborhood looked quite pleasant.

At that point, I had a choice to make. I could either wait 20 minutes for the next bus I needed to take, or walk about 25 minutes to the soccer facility.

The latter option would be a straight shot along a street lined with trees and modest but sensible houses. With blue skies overhead and the temperature in the low 70s (you're welcome), I decided to walk. It helped that I was in the mood for some exercise after a a few days of good and not-so-good eating.

Off I went, accompanied by a fresh breeze and a few good tunes on my phone. In the middle of one of the residential blocks, I paused for a second to look around. If I hadn't known I was in Winnipeg, I would have thought I was in a cookie-cutter suburb of Chicago. It felt, for lack of a better word, normal.

(And I say that as someone who grew up in a city neighborhood, albeit a well-to-do one.)

When the afternoon's press conference with midfielder Morgan Brian and Tobin Heath ended, I headed back into the city - this time, in the car of a fellow journalist who generously offered to give me a ride. I headed to the Forks for the second time on the trip, because I knew I could find lunch and televisions showing the afternoon's World Cup games.

The tables were almost all taken when I went to find a seat. Just about everyone was looking up at the televisions - and just about everyone was American.

So much of the chatter on local TV and radio stations and in the city's two daily newspapers has been about the thousands of soccer fans who've crossed the border this week to watch the United States play two group stages games here. The locals have been extremely kind and hospitable, but as with any time you have long-term house guests, after a while things the shine wears off.

Will it be that way by Saturday morning, when the traveling circus heads west to Vancouver? Who knows. There's still quite a bit of time between now and then. Still, I can't help wondering what it will be like for Winnipegers when we've all left.

The answer, I suppose, is that they will be normal. But judging from the buzz that the World Cup has generated in the city, it seems like the memories made here this week are going to last for a while.