A sign at the airport where they check your ID. My guess is that someone started to write "Please" but then changed his/her mind for some reason.
Aw, it's just Canada. Why do I still have to fill this out?
Downtown Toronto from the air.
The city puts absolutely tons of salt down. You have to constantly clean it off the back of your pants, and I'm amazed any cars last more than a year here.
At Tim Horton's, which is apparently the Canadian Starbucks. One of the guys working here was a lot of fun.
The Art Gallery of Toronto.
It had a really neat winding wooden staircase and wooden chairs.
Massacre of the Innocents by Rubens is probably the most well-known painting in the gallery.
Some of the modern "art." Testicles glued onto a bird's head in a suit.
More modern art. Come on, I could do that.
A seismograph, I think. I wonder why they have that?
Some neat paintings.
And some more.
This hallway was beautiful. There were carvings out of trees and giant glass windows on the side.
A "cloud" that Monica thought was neat. It was $6000 or something.
The day passes on the subway have scratch-off spots for the month and days. The first time we bought one, I thought they were giving everyone lotto tickets as a bonus. I couldn't work there because I'd end up scratching all the spots off all the tickets for fun.
A Scientology protestor. It would be a little cold for me to do that.
There are lots of little churches that have humongous buildings right beside them, which really looks weird.
The Royal Ontario Museum.
Some interesting chairs.
A super-tall totem pole.
Monica looking at a rock that "grew" fuzzy little rocks.
Some neat carvings.
The Queen of Kilimanjaro tiara.
Ooh, I love fluorescent rocks.
The big exhibit was on diamonds, which Monica was completely giddy about seeing. We got in line and walked along all these cases with everyone else, but they just kept talking about diamonds. We were wondering if there were any actual diamonds in the exhibit when we finally found the vault they put some in. My favorite were these black diamonds.
The subway stop near the museum had really neat pillars.
A bum sitting on a vent with steam to keep warm.
An ice-skating rink near the big curved building.
Monica and a friend outside Spice Route.
We ordered lots of different types of food. This one was thin strips of beef that you cooked yourself on a hot rock. We thought it was a giant eggplant, though, so Monica was just about to try to cut into it when the waiter explained what it was.
The three of us.
It was a really neat-looking restaurant, and the food was really good, too.
The bathrooms had a giant window to the outside. The area was enclosed so nobody could just walk by and look in, but it still freaked some people out.
We went to Crush Wine Bar afterward before going clubbing. I'm pretty sure I'd avoid wines with descriptions like "iodine" and "kerosene."
Oh, come on, let us in already. Dumb club policy of trying to always have some people in line so it looks like it's a hot spot. Not to mention it's freezing.
The music was pretty good, but the DJ was horrible at mixing the songs, so there would almost be dead space between them.
So, after a night of drinking and dancing, what better way to start the morning off than with a fire alarm at 6am?
Actually it was nice that they had that speaker because they could make announcements to all the rooms through it. At least they eventually turned it off and we could go back to bed rather than having to go outside and freeze. We had planned on going to Ward's Island in the morning, but everyone said that would be insane (the ferry would be cold, the island would be cold, and there would be nothing to see anyway), so we just slept in instead.
Ooh, I hate toilet rods that are ovals so they always flip a certain amount. It's a restriction of my freedom to take as much TP as I choose to.
I like the elevators in Canada. The doors only stay open for about 2 seconds, so you don't have to sit around waiting forever to get going.
The exercise room had a neat view.
Another example of a little church surrounded by giant buildings.
The mirrors really make this stairway confusing, almost like a funhouse.
The floor of the buses were covered in slush and melted snow. It's probably a hazard, but there's not much you can do about it.
One of the stops was at this school where all the kids were sledding. Some kids in the back were really excited, and the driver kept saying, "Don't worry; we won't skip the stop."
The driver also talked on her cell phone and ate some soup while driving.
I thought we should skip the Ontario Science Center because we've been to so many of them I figured it would just have all the same exhibits. Boy was I wrong. This was an interesting foyer with weird gadgets along the sides.
The elevator was really confusing. The floors were labeled weird and we and the other people on the elevator kept going up and down trying to find the level we wanted. There were stereograms just outside the elevator doors, though, so we just used those to let us know which floors we had already been to. Maybe because it was a science museum it was a test to see how smart you really were; you couldn't see the neat floors if you couldn't figure out how to get to them.
The floor had a shiny rainbow coloring.
This was my favorite display. Super-cooled, super-saturated alcohol showed trails where high-energy particles passes through it.
Another neat display had the sun and planets revolving around it.
This was a funny contradiction. It's Adam and Eve, but if you grab the leaf covering their naughty parts, you pull out a model of what's really in there.
Yeah, they're just a little more liberal than in the US. This display showed tons of contraception devices and had a video on misconceptions about birth control, including a section on how to obtain and use the morning after pill. There were also displays with fetuses in different stages of development.
This made up both jump and scream. You open the panel, and nothing happens for a few seconds. Then, without warning, a big puff of air shoots out of her "mouth" like a sneeze. I think my heart rate doubled.
Here you had to match up the DNA and RNA and proteins to figure out the code to open the safe. As you can see, we figured it out.
A popular machine that took your photo and then showed what you would look like in 40 years.
The rainforest section had a tree with spikes.
The always-popular tornado maker, although with a really neat globe in the back that showed the depth of the oceans.
There were lots of different types of birds outside.
They also had shadows of predatory birds to keep the smaller birds from running into the windows.
The CN Tower.
Some weird security system that shot air at you.
The food at the revolving restaurant there was really good.
Someone kept saying, "You don't have to dress up for the CN Tower" and then she did anyway. I wonder who that was, hmm?
Boy, that would be cold.
Construction on top of a nearby building.
Some of the other tall buildings downtown.
A panoramic of Toronto from the CN Tower. Click here for a bigger version.
Lying on the glass floor.
And then everybody else followed our example.
The tower was really pretty at night.
And it changed color, too.
Second City, a comedy and improv theater. My favorite skits were the really short ones, although they had a lot of really funny ones.
One of the seven bronze words in the sidewalk along Spadina which highlight the street's history.
Casa Loma, where Sir Henry Mill Pellatt lived.
A secret staircase.
The conservatory for flowers.
The library.
Lady Mary's sitting room, with a great view.
A view of the great hall.
Monica seeing if there was a way to get to the furniture on the little area on the left. There wasn't.
Up in one of the towers.
Which also had some neat views.
Tunnel to the stables.
The carriage room.
The stables.
The furnace for the castle.
A swimming pool.
The wine cellar.
Movie posters of movies which had scenes shot at Castle Loma.
Aw, Continental has a direct flight to Houston instead of stopping in Detroit. Then again, it's probably just a tad more expensive.
The wonderful de-icers. It's kind of annoying to have to wait for them, but it's better than crashing when something gets iced up.
A tunnel in the Detroit airport with walls that change color and nature sounds.
Ah, the pains of looking young. This woman was seated in the emergency exit, and the flight attendent asked how old she was (you have to be at least 15 years old to sit in one). She answered, "twenty-six."