We're in Canada! Oddly enough, neither Brian nor I has been to Canada before, so this was very exciting for us. First things first: we stopped at a Tim Horton's for coffee. Tim Horton's seems to be the Dunkin Donuts of Canada (and has donut hole like items called "Tim Bits," which seemed creepy) and had delicious iced coffee. Tim Horton's was also where we first encountered Canadian toilet paper. Whereas I am used to 2-ply, Canadian TP seems like 1/2-ply. I'll bring my own next time. We also heard a lot of Bryan Adams on the radio, which I guess is appropriate.
Soon enough we got to Niagara Falls. Apparently today is Canada Day, and Canucks showed their pride by wearing Cat in the Hat hats with maple leaves on them. We stopped at a casino to exchange some dollars (and won a few more on a slot machine called Wedding Party in the process) and began our journey around the area. We got lunch at an outdoor cafe called Edgewater (once Brian saw that they had beer flights, we knew this was the spot for us), then walked along the falls, where we saw foreign tourists in American Eagle trucker hats along with beautiful views. We also saw a car hit a pedestrian (or vice versa, the car had a busted mirror but the pedestrian seemed fine) and a dude with a popped collar posing by the falls. Note: why do some tourists not smile in pictures? Who wants a picture of a gruff looking man standing outside a hotel?
We then decided to take the Maid of the Mist boat tour, which was a boat tour through the falls. The tour was beautiful and very wet, but luckily we had fashionable complimentary ponchos. I am normally anti-poncho but desperate times call for desperate measures. Post-boat tour we continued walking down the main strip, stopping in front of Hard Rock Cafe when we saw a star with Michael Jackson's name on which a mini-memorial had been set up. I added a ticket we had won at the Ann Arbor arcade to the display. Later on, we saw another star with Michael Jackson's name that was not being used as a shrine, but I'm sure it will be decorated soon enough.
We soon checked out another area of Niagara known as Clifton Hill. The best way I could describe Clifton Hill is Vegas + Times Square X body odor. For some reason, many, many people in the area were not familiar with Ban, Axe, or Degree. Clifton Hill featured dozens of haunted houses, arcades, VeggiTales mazes, wax museums, and other tourist traps. We wisely avoided most of these and just went to the Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum, which had shrunken heads, giant chairs, and a vortex tunnel very similar to the one at the J-town haunted lawn!
Soon it was time for fireworks, which were beautiful, although I could have done without the Canadian commentator nearby whose diatribes seemed to be fueled by bottles of Molson. We had some dinner, made a failed attempt to walk to a McDonald's for gravy fries (it looked closer on the map than on real life, and we were afraid of potential Niagara Falls ruffians), and watched some Canada's Next Top Model before calling it a night. Tomorrow: Vermont! Note: for some reason I am having trouble getting the computer to upload pics right now so I will try to add some in from Niagara tomorrow.
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