Ontario Science Center (Toronto)

July 22, 2004

Today, we went to the Ontario Science Center (link, map). We got there using a combination of public trains and buses. It's amazing how satisfying it is to take public transportation when you come from a place that has none and every other vehicle on the road is an SUV that's never seen mud or a super-stroke turbo diesel dually truck that's never seen a load. Of course, the kids didn't really appreciate the opportunity. They'd rather just hop in the car since that's what they're used to.

Once we got there, we played with all kinds of crazy stuff. A Bernoulli thingie, a a bunch of magnets, a rollercoaster for racquetballs, et cetera. The best part was a house with foam bricks and shingles and columns that fit into it. They had a crane and you could "build" the house. The best part about that was that Emelia and some little British girl and I were building it while all the boys were just throwing the pieces at each other. Once, one of them (who was particularly a little jerk) was knocking the bricks out and said "Sorry, but I need this to kill." God, I love boys.

They also had an fake coral reef that they grew indoors with this elaborate machine that simluated the natural conditions that cause a reef to appear. Emelia was fascinated. She could have sat there all day watching the tanks dump into each other.