Drive

Sunday we left Toronto and drove to Philadelphia. It was a really nice drive and the weather was beautiful, I actually got to wear shorts for a brief time which was awesome. We drove straight through New York and stopped for breakfast at this restaurant that was delicious!



We saw a lot of farms that had wind power on them. It was nice to see.




On the way we stopped to get maps out of the trunk and we noticed a small graveyard across the street. It was a family graveyard so there were only a couple of graves there.

Visual Toronto III (Houses, etc.)

This was the hostel that we stayed at.



This awesome building was a high school.

And this building was right across the street. What a crazy city.

This was outside of a used game store.


This house was down the street from our hostel

At first I thought they were restoring it, then I thought they were tearing it down, but it turns out they are moving it to a new location so they can build a condo on the land.

I think the condo will be really ugly there but I'm happy they are keeping the house because it was pretty awesome.

Visual Toronto II (Museums)

The Royal Ontario Museum




They had all these coffins for various animals that the Egyptians used, this is a coffin for a baby Egyptian mongoose and bones for a kitten.

Me with, I think, a Mongol warrior suit.


Toy Soldiers, my dad has ones just like this that I played with as a kid.


They had an exhibit on minerals and gems.


The Ontario Science Center


Natan finding his center of gravity.


Me learning about contraception.



They had this camera so you see a close up of your eye, this is my eye.

This is Natan's teeth and tongue.

When you opened up this little door it would simulate a sneeze and shoot out a spray of water on you.


This machine weighed how much of you was made of water. For me (and Natan) it was about 40 liters.


Woah! Is Natan taller than me? No, just one of the many visual illusions they had there.

Visual Toronto

The Toronto subway.

A post for hanging posters, obviously a popular spot.

The future is now in Toronto!



Natan leading a flock of dog statues.


The bottling section of the Steam Whistle brewery.

Look at all the hip kids hanging out at the brewery, even dogs are welcome!


Even the graffiti in Toronto is hip! This was on a building across from our hostel



And this was in the girls bathroom at a restaurant in Kesington Market


More to come!

Recap

I got home from my vacation yesterday. I pretty much failed as a blogger on this trip, I'm sorry but when we got back to the hostels at night I was always totally exhausted and would pass out immediately. The trip was awesome though, barring the major debacle involving our flight home. For some unknown reason I thought we were flying out of Dulles Airport but it turns out that our flight was from Reagan Airport. Uh, yeah, I found this out at the counter at Dulles airport about 45 minutes before takeoff. I honestly have no idea how this happened, I booked the flights like two months ago and never looked at it and didn't check it before we left the hotel. It was pretty terrible, the Dulles airport does not fly to Fort Lauderdale and the next flight from Reagan airport wasn't until 7:30. So we headed back to the city via a forty-five minute bus ride and then to Dulles airport, which is much closer to the city, and hung out there until our flight. The whole thing was ridiculous and really all my fault so I felt terrible and we didn't get home until 11:00 at night so I ended up calling out of work today.
So I want to update the blog with vacation events, I thought about just doing a big recap but I like having a day by day record for myself. I will pick up where I left off with pictures of Toronto on the next entry.

Toronto

Natan and I said goodbye to Canada today and drive back to the states and into Philadelphia. Toronto was great. It is such a nice, clean, friendly city. The first night there we went to this bar/restaurant down the street from our hotel called the Spotted Dick. It was this old bar that had been kept up really nicely, but not in a hip sort of way. The food was delicious and I had Canadian beer called Steam Whistle (which it turns out is made in Toronto and the next day we went on a brewery tour there!) We were both pretty exhausted from traveling all day plus it was cold and raining. The next day we walked around town, stopped by the CN tower but didn't go up it because it was pretty expensive. Then we went to the Steam Whistle Brewery, which was great. I had never been on a brewery tour before and it was so much fun. Steam Whistle is a Canadian Pilsner and they are the second most renewable/earth friendly brewery in North America (the first is a brewery in Colorado). We then proceeded to walk a far distance to get to this sugar museum that ended up being closed which was disappointing mostly because we had walked so far out of the way to get there and there was nothing else good to do in that area so we had to turn around and walk again. We went to the Saint Lawrence market and bought some cheese and crackers and then went back to the hotel to rest. That night we went to the Royal Ontario Museum, they are open later on Fridays and admission is half price so it worked out. Except we got all turned around and got off on a subway stop that was much further away than we thought and we had to walk some more. The ROM was awesome. They had so much stuff from many different countries and cultures (Africa, Egypt, Middle Eastern and Muslim, Indian, South American, North American, Asian, European) and what I really liked was that they had a lot of "everyday" artifacts, things that people would use on a daily basis but that you don't often see in museums. For example they had makeup instruments from ancient Egypt and a Formica color sample book in a display about plastics. They also had Natural History and an amazing collection of crystals and gems.
Saturday we woke up and headed straight for the Science Center. It was a lot like the Museum of Discovery and Science in Ft. Lauderdale but bigger and more confusingly laid out and the most important difference was that this museum had a whole section about sexual reproduction and contraception that I don't think you would ever see in an American museum that is geared towards kids. It was really informative though and they even had different birth control through the ages. They had a lot of neat stuff but some of the things didn't work which was disappointing, like they had a camera that would age you fifty to sixty years but it stopped working as soon as I sat in front of it. After that we went back to the hostel to layer on more clothes because it had gotten colder, then we went to Kensington Market which is just an area of town with a bunch of international shops and market and restaurants. They also have a lot of vintage and used clothing stores,but unfortunately after we got there and ate all the stores were closing. We looked into a few of them and they seemed good though.
I'm too tired to upload pictures now but they will come soon!

Niagra Falls

After getting little to no sleep we arrived in Buffalo, NY. We headed towards the falls and when we got there it started to rain. We almost didn't go because we were tired and it was cold and we didn't have an umbrella or raincoats but finally we decided that we would get wet anyway at the falls. In the parking lot the car next to us had it's window smashed.



It did stop raining after we went through the behind the falls tour but it was still really difficult to get pictures because of all the mist.

This is Natan in one of the tunnels you take behind the falls, it was freezing cold there.





We kept seeing all these restaurant but they were all closed! Not that I would have wanted frozen yogurt, but it just a funny name.

Vacation!

Natan and I leave tomorrow morning at 5:50 in the morning for our vacation. I'm very excited but also nervous, I've never had to plan my own trip and I just hope everything works out and we aren't mugged in our sleep in a shitty hotel. I'm very sleepy right now because it's been a crazy two weeks. Tuesday my paper was due in my Post-Modern World Literature class and I basically wrote it Sunday and Monday night. I hope it turned out okay, I don't think it's terrible but who knows. It was one of the least painful papers I've ever written. Usually I spend so many hours in front of the computer not writing anything and just hating myself because I feel like I get get the words from my brain to the screen. I also had to make my classroom plans and I am nervous about leaving the kids for so long. I hope I left enough work for them and I hope the substitute doesn't look at my stuff and say "what the hell is she doing in this class?" and I hope that when I come back I don't have to like "re-train" the kids to me. It's nerve-wracking. I also hope that I didn't forget to pack anything, I don't think, I tend to over pack. I'm like George in Seinfeld because I dress by mood. I tried to actually plan my outfits so I wouldn't just pack a bunch of random clothes that don't really go together because I've done that before. I just hope I brought the right clothes because it will be pretty cold in Toronto (well in the 50's which is cold to me) and nice/ cool/cloudy/rainy in Washington. When packing I always think about things that I will want that I never really use here, like I just spent so much time thinking and packing jewelry when I wear the same jewelry pretty much every day. I just like having the options. Well I need to go to sleep now; I have to wake up at 4 in the morning. I will be able to update my blog while on vacation though because Natan is bringing his computer so look forward to pictures!

sick

Every time that a cold front has come through South Florida I've gotten sick. It starts with just a headache from the pressure, then I get a sore throat, and eventually I get congested. I'm really over this cold weather. I've been sick since Monday and I am ready for regular Florida weather. I want to go swimming and wear shorts and not coordinate every outfit with a sweater. I used to really like cold weather (or at least Florida's version of cold weather) and I still do really love wearing sweaters and hats but the last couple of years I am just done with cold weather. I think it started when I was in Lima, Peru for two weeks two years ago. Not only was it really cold every single day, but the sun never, NEVER came out and places didn't have heat (in fact the bedroom in the house I was staying in had a whole in the window) so basically I could never get warm. Oh, also hot water is not always guaranteed in the shower. When I was in Cuzco the shower had NO hot water and so I didn't shower for three days. Also my old apartment in Hollywood (or Hollywoord, as my license said) had really bad insulation so in the winter it never really stayed warmed. All these lead my to grow tired of cold weather very quickly. So although it is much warmer in South Florida than the rest of the country (and the rest of the State) I am ready for actual summer. I even bought sandals this weekend. I never wear sandals because I hate when my feet get dirty but I decided that I do actually need them. I also got these awesome oxford like shoes. I really love them, they remind me of 1930's shoes. I got this really great book called Everyday fashions of the 1930's and it's all catalog pages from the Sears Catalog.


Last week I was driving home and I saw some interesting looking garbage in front of someones house, it was a little box and a little ladder. I didn't stop that day and when I returned the ladder was gone but the little box turned out to be a card catalog box! I was extremely excited as I am a big fan of the card catalog system.



When I got home and showed my mom she started to laugh, apparently she had stopped the day before and got the little ladder! She put in it the garden for her beans to grow up.


I went thrift shopping yesterday and I got some really nice things. I got this white dress from H&M. I was unsure about it because the thrift shop had no fitting room and the dress was ten dollars but I took a risk and it worked out! The dress fits perfectly and it's super cute. I was also unsure about the cut of the dress because I don't normally like dresses like that on me but it looks good and I am glad I got it.

I think I might wear it tonight (with tights and a sweater, thanks to the cold front)to Passover dinner at Natan's mom's house. I also think it will be good to bring on my trip later this month, I can wear if it's hot but if it's cold I can add a sweater to it. I also got that floral button down shirt that's next to the white dress on the clothes line, but I don't really know I buy floral shirts. I think they look really cute on other people and I really like button down shirts on me but somehow the combination on me never works right. Oh well.