= Friday night, July 18 =

Local Cytoscape staff will lead groups of interested attendees to Toronto cool neighborhoods and sights.  Once there, you will be free to hang out - no specific activities are planned.

Note: We will provide public transit tokens to help you get there, but once you are there, you are free to roam and will have to find your way home - so make sure you have a map if you need one :)

== The Royal Ontario Museum (Lead: Chris Tan) ==
The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), Canada's largest museum of natural history and world cultures, is a popular public attraction in downtown Toronto that attract between 750,000 to over a million visitors annually. First opened to the public in 1914 and originally consist of five separate museums: the Royal Ontario Museums of Archaeology, Palaeontology, Mineralogy, Zoology, and Geology.  ROM was reorganized as a single body since 1955, with over six million objects in its collection today. 

With the recent completion of The Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, a 56,000 square-foot museum extension that by itself is a spectacular architectural art piece, an evening outing to ROM on half-price admission to enjoy the intricacies of ancient cultures and natural world cannot be wrong. 

The museum is currently housing a special exhibition "Darwin: The Evolution Revolution:".

Weather permitting, we will proceed on foot to ROM through the Philosopher's Walk, a scenic footpath that end right beside ROM, exploring parts of University of Toronto along the way.

== Little Italy (Lead: Daniele Merico) ==
As the name tells, little Italy used to be a mainly Italian neighborhood. The part on College St is highly enriched in restaurants, bars, cafes, pubs etc..., so it's a good place to hang out (or watch soccer matches, provided you support Italy of course). <<BR>>
You can find out more at: <<BR>>
http://www.torontotourism.com/Visitor/WhatToSeeAndDo/Neighbourhoods/LittleItaly.htm <<BR>>
http://littleitaly.sites.toronto.com/index.html

The aim of the expedition will be to go to Dolce (''Eng'': "sweet") and get a gelato (''Eng'': "ice cream") ;) <<BR>>
In case anybody wants to get there on his own, or check out the area, the address is 679A, College Street.

PS: the neighborhood is NOT run by mafia, please forget about Sopranos..

== The Distillery District (Lead: Shirley Hui) ==

The Distillery District is a historic site of what was the Gooderham and Worts distillery and North America’s best preserved collection of Victorian industrial architecture.  It is located to the east of downtown Toronto and today it is the home of internationally acclaimed galleries, theatres, restaurants, cafes and boutique retailers.

Some recommendations:
 * [[http://www.sleeman.com/summerfestpatioparty|Summerfest]]
  * (Canada's Largest Patio Party) will the taking place Fri Jul 18 - 20 and features live Music, BBQ and Beer
 * [[http://www.somachocolate.com|Soma Chocolatemaker]]
  * Gelato was recently recommended in the Toronto Star newspaper [[http://www.thestar.com/living/article/456713|article]]
 * [[http://millstreetbrewery.com|Mill St. Brewery]]
  * Winner of 2007 Canadian Brewery of the Year award

Some facts:
 * It is the best-preserved 19th-century factory complex in the country. 
 * It kept functioning as a distillery up until the 1990s.
 * In the 1990s, it was the 2nd largest film site outside of Hollywood.

Location:
 * [[http://www.thedistillerydistrict.com/location.html|Directions (includ. subway/bus)]]

More info:
 * [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillery_District|Distillery District by Wikipedia]]
 * [[http://www.thedistillerydistrict.com/frameset.html|Distillery District Website]]
 * [[http://images.google.ca/images?ndsp=18&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=distillery+district&start=0&sa=N|Distillery District Google Images]]