Are you afraid of the dark?

Hey everyone!

Tonight I had the neatest dinning experience! For one of my projects at school, we chose to see what it would be like to be blind for a couple hours. We chose to go and eat at a restuarant in Toronto called O'Noir. We had read about it and thought we were prepared for what awaited us! Ok let me back track to a little earlier in the day. Class was cancelled this morning, so I got to do a little sleeping in, in hopes of doing some homework. Unfortunately I was very bad and didn't get much of anything done. We decided to do a couple little trips today, since my friends down the hall are doing a different topic. We started out the day with a much needed Starbucks run! There we also drew names for our Christmas Secret Santa. Once that was done, we packed up and headed to downtown Toronto. We went through gay town, Chinatown and FINALLY (with dad's directional help) made it to Little Italy. We drove through and took some pictures for the girls' presentation. Then we started to head to our dinner destination with a few detours and changes of direction. It was nice to go for a little drive and it was fun to just hang out together for a while. Back to my original topic - dinner! So, we had read about the restuarant and were super excited to check it out and experience it ourselves. We got there, and had to go downstairs. The whole restaurant was underground. It was dimly lit and we were seated in the bar area and given menus. We picked out our food as we waited to be seated. Once they had taken our orders, we were lead over to the door which lead into the actual eating area. The waitress came out and introduced herself as Tracy. (She was seeing impaired). She had us split and enter in 3 at a time. I grabbed her shoulder, Emily grabbed my shoulder and Danielle grabbed Emily's. She lead us through one door, and then another. The restuarant was as black as if you were squeezing your eyes shut. She lead us around a few tables and helped us get seated. Once we were sitting, she went out and grabbed the rest of our group. Once all 6 of us were seated she brought us glasses of water and handed them to us by tapping on our right shoulders and we would reach back to find her hand. She explained to us where everything was located on the table so we had an idea of where things were. We basically just felt around to find anything we needed. Then she brought us bread rolls which we had to reach into a basket to grab. At this point we were all still a little leary about how dinner was going to go. We all said that our eyes were strained becuase we were trying to open them as wide as we could thinking that they would adjust to the lighting, but that didn't happen. We managed to eat our meals and share with each other without too much of a mess! Everyone used their hands to touch the food and feel where it was placed on the plate - we said it was the only place you could play with your food and it would be ok becuase no one could see you! By the end of the meal, we were very aware of where things were, we had a better idea of how far away people and objects were and were more comfortable and relaxed in the setting. It was extremely strange not being able to see anything. We found though, that we were more attuned into each other's voices and the fluctuation seeing as we couldn't see to read body language. We found it to be quite the bonding experience too as we sat in the dark and had to trust everyone else for everything we needed. It was a fantastic meal and we all had such a great time together. When we left, we had quite the shock going out into the dimly lit area again. We all found it a little hard to see and I found myself to be a little off balanced and dizzy when we got back into the light. It was a great experience though and I recommend it to everyone!

It was a great chance to step into the shoes of a blind person for even a couple hours. It was a great chance to chat with friends, learn how to trust others and use our other senses for a little while!