*images from my trip are spaced out in slideshows, please enjoy!

You may remember that in March of 2020 I was supposed to go on a toddler date to The ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) here in Toronto. I had planned in with the mom of the toddler who I used to nanny. His little sister was just over a year and whenever I would go over to babysit, she demanded a lot more of my energy than he was happy with. So this trip was just going to be us. It was for March 18th. But on March 13th, Toronto closed all things for the pandemic and we all know the rest of that story.

But! Yesterday I was FINALLY able to go again! The museum opened on Friday for its members, and the general public on Saturday. I wanted to go today, but apparently they are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. In order to get it in before I move from the city, I had to go yesterday. I booked a ticket online and was ready for my 11:40am time slot.

The website was a little confusing though. I had to book a time slot and it was called a “timed ticket”. This gave me the impression that I had to arrive at 11:40 and was only allowed a certain amount of time inside. I had heard that a lot of museums/art galleries are doing that in order to keep order and allow as many people through as they are allowed at the moment.

So I planned my day. I got off a subway stop further than I needed to just after 11. I stopped off at Tim Hortons to grab some lunch. I wake up and eat early so I knew that I would want lunch before going into the museum. Especially since no food/drink (other than water) is allowed in at the moment.

I arrived at the museum at around 11:30 and was allowed to go right in. Apparently the timed ticket was just for their special exhibit on whales. And they are in 20 minute time intervals. Since I was just about 5 minutes early, the very kind museum worker said to head straight down to their whale exhibit and get ready to go in at 11:40. Once I was done, I was allowed to stay in the museum for as long as I wanted. I got down to the whale exhibit and was told that I could go in (5 minutes early) and then stay as long as I wanted. SO I DID!

In total I spent just under 3.5 hours at the museum, which was great for the $35 ticket price. I learned after, from my dad, that we never went when I was a child so it was my first time going! There are 6 floors in total. I did the special exhibit first (second basement) and then did floors 4,3,2,1. I didn’t go to the first basement because their map said it was just the restaurant and once I finished level 2 I was exhausted. I did floor 1 in about 30 minutes and was out.

It was a great experience and I wish that I had more energy to devote to floor 1, but I was just too tired. After a year and a half of this pandemic, and teaching so much from home this year, my body is just not used to the exertion. I seriously feel so old….

Out of the whole museum, these are the two most important things you need to see:

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HAHA of course they are hippos!

Another cool thing was in the African exhibit. Honestly there were TONS of cool things. All the cool things. But this one reminded me of a blog post I have read before, I think from Leggy Peggy about how people in Africa will create unique coffins to send off their loved ones into the afterworld – either with aspirations of wealth, or as a symbol of their lives. Such as this fish one:

Now another thing that was pretty cool was the bathrooms. First of all, a few were “genderless bathrooms”. Which was nice! It’s just like a regular multi-stall bathroom situation but anyone could use them and they were clearly marked as genderless. In the stall was also a handwashing station and LOOK AT IT!

So you wash your hands under the normal part, and then the parts that stick out to the sides ARE THE DRYERS! HOW COOL!!!!

And they were super awesome with guards all over and people were being respectful of space and all wearing masks and there were sanitizer stands about every 10-20 steps it seemed. Which the teacher in me wanted to use every single one, but I limited myself to when I touched any doors or absent mindedly leaned on a ledge like I would normally do pre-pandemic.

Now another thing that I do, as any good sister does, is that I send pictures to my brother of things that I see that look like him. If he was with me, I would have just pointed them out. But it started yesterday because his new gf sent me a message asking how my trip was going JUST as I passed by the most “yo dis you” thing possible! So since I have not yet met her, or had any kind of conversation with her, I decided to test what she was made of and sent her a picture of “my brother” to which she played along so she is obviously amazing. So here are all the pictures of my brother: