Mackenzie House Museum and Burrito Boyz

Saturday, March 3rd, we went to the Mackenzie House Museum.

From a Toronto tourism website, "Mackenzie House was the last home of Toronto’s first mayor, William Lyon Mackenzie. The museum interprets urban Victorian life of the 1860's and the evolution of democratic institutions through the lens of Mackenzie as a writer, publisher, politician and rebel.

The site includes the original three-storey brick, Greek Revival row house (originally the centre of three row houses, built circa 1858), and a one-storey addition which houses a narrow gallery space, a recreated print shop  and reception/gift shop that was added by the City in 1967."

One of the tour guides gave us a great narrative on William Mackenzie in his recreated printing shop.  People like Bruce make learning history fun!  

He talked to us about the print shop and we learned about uppercase letters and lowercase letters.  That I had learned before.  The capital letters used to be stored in the higher, or upper case, thus giving them their names.  But he also shared another fun saying.  While showing the size of the paper and where the actual words could be printed, he showed a large rectangle called a 'chase'.  If the printer had too many words and didn't fit inside the chase, he would have to take things out which was called "cutting to the chase".  And that's where we get that phrase.  Cool!

We then were allowed to each make a printing with our names on it.

Glenn chose his letters from the box, remembering to put them in backwards and upside down.

Then Bruce put it in the printing machine and had Glenn help him with each step.

Making sure the paper was in correctly and the crank would work properly...

Turning the crank to wheel the paper under the weight...

Pulling the lever to press the massive weight down onto the paper, thus printing the letters  that were chosen.

While I kept Sarah away from all the little pieces, Paul made one for Sarah and one for Paul and I together.

Voila!

We then got a tour for the actual house.  It was a simple tour, but a good one.  It is always fascinating to me to see how people lived long ago.  I'm amazed at their ingenuity and what they lived with--chamber pots for instance.  How grateful I am for their hard work in continually striving for better ways of living and improving the quality of life.  

Back at home we decided to try another restaurant for dinner.  The Burrito Boyz had high reviews online and it sounded good.

And they were good!  They were probably the best burrito I've ever had.  Glenn really liked them too.  He asked if we could go there again and again.  I'm sure we will, especially since they are close!