Scary dinos and spring peepers too

Toronto Top Ten Highlights: We did #1 and #8 today

We did #10, Niagara Falls, yesterday and don’t much care about the rest.
It was fun to stroll through the University of Toronto campus this morning
on our way to ROM. For those not in the know, it’s the Royal Ontario Museum.
I puzzled a student while asking directions to the Royal “Canada” Museum,
so I am only recently cool and in the know.
The dinosaurs were beyond amazing. I loved the bat cave and other things designed
to entice children. We did an hour tour to get an idea of the scope of this
natural history/world cultures museum, the largest in Canada and the 5th
biggest in North America. They have space to display only 5% of holdings at
one time. I wished my siblings were there: lots of Great Lakes habitat stuff.
The old building has and is currently being renovated, the most dramatic
part the entrance façade, a series of 5 interconnecting crystal structures
designed by German architect Daniel Libeskind. It didn’t feel as jarring to me
as Pei’s pyramid entrance at the Louvre. The museum visit would be worth it
for the new “Crystal” structure alone.
I felt some shame in the cafe lunch line (always in the lunch line) when a guy
expressed horror that his friend did not pay extra to see the Dead Sea Scrolls
exhibit. “I’d have paid $100 if they asked.” A second later, he protested as the
checkout person asked for $2.25 for his bottle of water. She and I bonded
when I observed, “She did not set the price!” We’d decided the regular museum
would be more than enough, maybe see a TV production on the Scrolls at a later time.
We had fun playing with 2 German women who discovered the photo tricks
one could perform with sheets of laminated plexiglass in front of ROM.
More photos on Facebook.