What We Loved About our 7th and 8th Grade Trip to Toronto
by Mitch Boorstein, Blake Buress, Alayna Hackman, Tyler Kolchinsky, Hannah Myers, Noah Rand and Emily Unger
What do you get when you mix 7th and 8th grade kids, chaperones Adi Zachor, Julie Rolnick, Herb Jahr, Dan Masucci, Keren Alpert, a chilly bus, and two border crossings? Great memories of a trip to Toronto.
It was a busy weekend with stops in Kensington Market to buy hats for Jalen Zeman and Emily Unger, who didn’t bring hats (we don’t blame their parents, but it was FREEZING in Toronto). Then after some yummy Chinese food, we checked into our hotel, splashed around in the pool and met in Adi’s room to light Shabbat candles. That night, we went to the top of CN tower with the "spectacular view", according to Emily Unger, bravely walked across the glass floor while looking down, enjoyed a special dinner, and walked home for services in our hotel room and finally collapsed in our rooms!
Saturday morning we walked to breakfast and back. The employees at Tim Horton’s and Starbucks did not seem that excited that we were in Toronto. Oh, well! Then we had services in Adi’s room, and the Torah portion was the Ten Commandments. We love our baby travel Torah.
After breakfast and services, we went to the ROM, the Royal Ontario Museum. They had an amazing dinosaur and fossil collection, a bat cave (with fake bats--some of us were happy they were fake, some were not), a bird demonstration, great mummies, a really old torah and an African art exhibit on the 4th floor. We actually liked everything and would have stayed longer, but the mall was calling us!
We got to spend our Canadian money and hang out with our friends at the Eaton Centre. Blake Buress tells us that "going around the mall by ourselves but with our friends was so fun. I went with my friends because they are fun to hang out with. I loved spending Canadian money!"
We returned to the hotel. Lots of boys swam and then the 8th grade girls did make-overs on the younger girls (and did a nice job). Then it was off to an evening of dinner and excitement at Medieval Times. We cheered the Black and White Knight and ate our medieval food. Our knight didn’t win, but the show was "really cool" according to Noah Rand.
We returned to our hotel, and were enjoying quiet time during Havdalah, as we went around the circle and told each other about our favorite memories of the weekend. This ended when the smoke alarm in Adi’s room went off. We quickly ended Havdalah!
Sunday morning, we ate breakfast in Adi’s room, packed up and cleaned up our rooms and headed off to Casa Loma, which according to Blake was "awesome and huge". Hannah Myers liked seeing the posters of all of the movies that have been filmed there including "The Pacifier", "Chicago", "Tuxedo" and "X-Men".
Mitch Boorstein, when reminiscing about the trip writes, "When I first heard about the trip, I jumped at the opportunity and was one of the first to sign up. I had been on the Lawson Institute trip twice before and it was so much fun. I have now become even closer friends with my friends at Temple." Alayna Hackman agrees, stating "I really liked it and I thought it was really fun and I want to go with the Temple on next year’s trip. I liked getting to know my other roommates and I had a great time." Tyler Kolchinsky sums it up: "Toronto was one of the best trips I ever went on with Temple".
