Toronto

 Last week we finally had a real vacation and went to Toronto, Canada! It was really nice, except for the air quality turning the city into the apocalypse about halfway through. That was not as fun. But I really liked the place! I would love to go back since we definitely only experienced a fraction of the stuff available.

First of all, I loved the vibe of Toronto. It felt super international and artsy. There was a lot of fun graffiti that I enjoyed on a lot of the street lights and community boards. My favorite was a sheet of paper saying "Are you ugly? Email me, I have questions" which was so funny. There also was such a diverse group of people on the streets and in restaurants. Nearly everything was in English and French, which was so neat as an everyday occurrence.

Now our first day was dedicated to museums, starting with the Art Gallery of Ontario. I really liked their collection! There was a lot of local and Canadian art, plus plenty of special exhibits you can get into with general admission. And even beyond the super advertised exhibits there were a number of rooms dedicated to specific artists so you can see a lot of their work in one place. It was a cool way to highlight their work without making a huge fuss about it. Plus all of the museum descriptions on the walls etc were in English, French, and Anishinaabeg. Which I had never seen in a museum and was super excited about.

After that we went to the Baha Shoe Museum! I was so excited about this museum, it was half of the reason I wanted to go to Toronto. There was a main exhibit covering a timeline of shoes, then a few special exhibits. We saw an exhibit on a specific designer, cowboy boots, and archeology of shoes at a specific site near Hadrian's Wall. It was a cool mix of topics related to shoes! Only a fraction of their collection is ever on display so it changes over frequently, which is sad for me since I can't go back for a while.

Our next day was when the sky looked like the end times due to air quality, but we went out to the Toronto Islands anyways. It was so nice to hop on a ferry and just get to a beach. It's great to have that so accessible and nearby to such a large city!

Anyways, I loved Toronto. All of the food I had there was amazing, and there were so many museums we didn't have time to check out. I hope that I'm able to go back soon!