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Published: December 30th 2009
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I think that I had the worst sleep of my life. Some inconsiderate foreign students living in the Toronto hostel were up all night running around and listening to Tupac. So in retaliation, when we got up at 6am to go catch our bus, I hit 'em with a little "Ghetto Gospel", cranking my iPod to full volume. I added a bit of tap dancing and door slamming for good measure. That hostel was rubbish actually, it was old, noisy and the roof leaked, if it was a person it would be a grumpy old man with insomnia and incontinence.
Once aboard the Greyhound bus we were a bit dubious to sleep after the whole murder case where an innocent traveller was brutally stabbed to death by a deranged psychopath. So sleep was a little hard to come by. We grossly overestimated the time we would need at the falls. We arrived at 10am and had until 10pm before our return journey, oops. As we made our way through the town from the bus stop we passed Ferris wheels, Ripleys believe it or not buildings, loads of restaurants and large hotels. It had quite a good atmosphere perhaps verging on
Niagara Falls
Horseshoe part of the falls the tacky side though. It is quite commonly known as Viagra falls now as loads of older couples come on second honeymoons!
The closer we got the louder the roar of the falls became until we emerged from a side street and saw the famous falls across the river on the American side. It was still partially frozen from winter and large boulders of ice arose from the bottom of the falls. Cue photo taking.
We had intended on going on the Maid of the Mist, an old boat that takes you close to the falls themselves. It's been open since 1846, but I don't reckon it can brag about that because it's only open half the year, so we bloody missed out.
If you have seen photos of Niagara falls you will have undoubtedly seen the part called Horseshoe Falls, we visited this next and it was impressive. Once you get to Table Rock, which is directly next to the falls, it is amazing to both listen to and witness the raw power of the falls. Apparently more than 150 million litres of water falls over the crest line every minute in high flow. I sure
wouldn't want to be diving in, that's for sure. Strangely enough some people have, most get annihilated but a few stories of survival are out there. One boy who's boat capsized went over and survived many moons ago, more recently someone went over, obviously trying to commit suicide, as when he went over and was still alive, rescuers were shunned by the individual, so in the end they had to use the wind power of a helicopter to drive the person to shore.
Getting photos proved difficult as the mist from the falls absolutely soaks you, it gets pretty cold standing out there watching so we made our way indoors to get hot chocolates at Tim Hortons. Tim Hortons is Canada's version of Starbucks. Canadian's seem to love this place, it was our first experience and was cheap and tasty so I guess they have something good going on.
Once defrosted we made our way back outside and made the long trek down to the Niagara whirlpool, what a disappointment, all that walking turned out to be for nothing, there was a small eddy that was not worth the effort, at least it killed a couple of hours
I guess, but I wouldn't recommend it. They seem to have loads of tourist attractions near to the falls, which I think budding entrepreneurs have opened to suck people in. I suggest just going to see the falls and trust me you don't need 12 hours to see them!
My sister Jaimee who was meeting us in New York had recommended that we put our name down for the ballot for David Letterman tickets. We had done this online a few weeks prior, and as we were walking the streets of Niagara I received a call asking if we'd like to go see the show. "Of course" I replied, "Well you'll need to answer a Letterman show trivia question from my colleague who will ring you shortly". Uh oh, I was a bit stressed now, I've watched bits of Letterman over the years but never really sat down and watched a whole show. So when the phone rang an hour or so later I was hoping like heck it'd be something easy ... it wasn't, I had no idea what the answer to "What kind of store does Rupert own?", I choked and said a souvenir store. "Aah no
that's not right". This is when I put on a sob story and said "Oh no, my girlfriend put me forward for the tickets, she loves the show, I don't want to let her down" The lady then said "Well maybe she can answer the question, or do you want another one?" In truth Nicola had never watched Letterman before so I took another question: "What does Alan Kalter do? ... at the start of the show". I think she added that last bit because she could hear me sweating. I paused ... "ummm, he introduces Dave". "Yeah that's right, he's the announcer". Cue running man and robot dance celebration. It was then that I realised that my phone was about to die. Thankfully she gave me all the details just before it cut out.
To celebrate, and pass the time - we still had 4 hours til our bus - we went back for more Tim Hortons. From here we found a pizza joint and killed more time before heading back to see the falls under lights. We had known that they illuminated the falls, and this is the reason why we booked a late bus back, in
the end I think it was worth it as the falls looked brilliant when lit up in a range of different colours. As it turns out, after being at the falls for 12 hours, I had to be dragged away as I couldn't stop taking photos. One day I'll learn.
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