Niagara Falls

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So the trip down to Niagara Falls actually only takes about 2 hours and less if you're not on a Greyhound bus.
I got there at about 8.30pm and after a very short yet exhausting trip from the bus stop to the hostel I ventured out to see the falls at night. They use spotlights to illuminate them from dusk until about midnight....the bright coloured spotlights that they use are, in my opinion, a little tacky but the effect is still quite impressive.
So, some facts about the falls. They are the second largest falls in the world, second to Victoria Falls in Africa. 'Niagara falls' is actually made up of The American Falls, Bridal Veil Falls and then the Canadian/Horseshoe falls. The American falls are 176 feet high and the brink is 1060 feet long and 150 000 US gallons of water pour over it per second. The Canadian/Horseshoe falls are 167 feet high with a brink of 2600 feet and 600 000 US gallons pour over it per second. (They're the better falls...just so you know)
The US/CANADIAN border splits the two sides. Which is a right pain in the arse because if you're want to go right up close to both, you have to cross the border, go through customs etc....
The word 'Niagara' is derived from an Iroquois Indian word and means 'the straight'. So there you go.
In terms of Daredevils feeling the need to 'conquer' the falls, it mostly consists of people packing themselves into barrels and throwing themselves over. Which to me is an idea nothing short of insane, but whatever, if that's what you get a kick out of? fair enough then.
Some make it, perhaps a little bruised and battered but just as many either end up with 2 broken knees caps and a broke jaw or just not at all. One guy made it over the falls but then suffocated when his barrel got stuck behind the falls for 14 hours. Another man died when he rode a jet ski over it with the intention of using his parachute to make it to safety....except his parachute failed. The first person to make it over was a 63-year-old schoolteacher who packed herself into a barrel. I think it was in 1923.
I would have liked to have made it to the daredevils’ museum, but that was on the American side and I couldn't be arsed crossing the border.
The falls in the winter don't freeze but the sides do build up with ice. The flow was stopped once or twice but that was because of an ice blockage further up in Niagara river, and once Americans (yes, Americans...not Canadians) stopped the flow over the American falls to see if they could make them look bigger (why....why, am I not surprised???) but decided it was too expensive.
So, the city of Niagara itself is, to be honest, boring. Beyond the falls, casinos and various but fairly standard tourist attractions, the city itself doesn't really have that much to offer and stands to represent a fairly standard Ontario country town (as far as I know).
You can see where the city has made an attempt to get people to stay more than one or two nights with Casinos, fun parks, theme/novelty restaurants, a wax museum things like that but given the presence of a large number of bed and breakfasts, it stands clear that their attempts are reasonably unsuccessful.
So the next day, the 12th was pretty exciting for me because it snowed, and for someone whose pretty much never seen snow before (once, in Boston, it was melted by 11), and certainly never walked around in it while it was actually snowing I was well stoked about it...I think more than a few people thought that I was a little odd as I was walking down river road with a ridiculous grin on my face. As well I felt the fairly unnecessary need to tell everyone I met, people I for the most part didn't know, about it. Whatever, I was excited.
Maid of the mist is basically a boat that takes you right up to the falls, leaves you there long enough to get soaked by the mist... and then takes you back. it's great fun, especially when the temperature is -2.
I shared my Maid of the mist experience with two main groups of people on the boat....the Jewish family who felt the need to sing under the falls and Japanese tourists...."aaaaaawwww".
Turns out this fairly random weather was going to have more of an effect on me than I initially expected because the storm took out half the power in Buffalo New York and closed the bridge, thus leaving me stranded in Niagara for another night.
However I met Matt and Nick that night and we ended up traveling to Chicago together the next day.
If ever you get the chance, I strongly recommend seeing the falls. They really are, for lack of a better word, spectacular. And, a little mesmorising. Photos do them no justice, and to understand the full force of them you have to stand in front of them, listen to the roar and watch as an almost unfathomable amount of water cascades down into the river below. The mist it creates is so much that it rises into the air, often obscuring a tourists' view of the falls.
And that's Niagara.

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