BUFFALO, NIAGRA

Hi everyone, another update, how did you all like my photographs? Ive got a couple to add to the Boston photos, ones of Cheers but i cant do that till another day. More photos to come soon. On friday 29th i caught a Greyhound from Boston to Buffalo at 7.10am. $76. I never got to Buffalo until 7.30 so i was 12 hours on the bus and boy was i stiff the time i got off!
We had to change buses about half way and on the second half of my journey a man sat next to me . He went to sleep for a couple of hours ( on my shoulder!) but then he started chatting the usual small talk, asking where i was going, am i on holiday etc. He was english so for once i was gabbing way quite freely cos i knew he could understand me. Any way we were chatting and i asked him if he was on holiday blah blah and then he said he was preaching for a foreign mission and then i noticed the white collar (which i hadnt before) and i thought what on earth am i gonna talk to a priest about for the next 3 hours.! Anyway he was really nice he's not long back from Western Sahara in Africa where he was giving sermons and helping the people. I asked him if he travelled about in Africa and he said no that one country in Africa was enough for him because the poverty and deprivation would break your heart. He's now in America for 5 weeks giving sermons around New England and New York State trying to raise awareness for Africa. He was asking me my reasons for travelling the world, he said his sister travelled round the world when she was younger but it was the result of so many tragedies surrounding her that she went. She was adopted into his family for a start when she was a baby and has never met her own parents, then her adoptive mother died when she was 13(his mum) then their brother died of cancer when he was young and she was really close to him. Also when she was a medical student she met someone and was engaged to be married, had the dress and everything then he called it off because he said she didnt believe in divorce and he did (???). She never met anyone else and never married because he broke her heart. He has since married then got divorced. I tell you i was nearly blubbing at this point. Shes now a successful dentist in Edinburgh. He says he's really pleased that im travelling for fun and not as a result of heartache. He is a Marist Father and says that wherever i am in the world if im stuck ive to go to a Marist home or church and tell them i know him and they will help me. He says hes well known as hes travelled a bit, i wont say his name here , you never know whos reading :-) ha at one point Raymond text me, thats us been going out for a year today :-) and he asked me what it was i was holding. I didnt know if he was kidding but i said its a phone and he said what does it do???? I said you can phone people and he said yes but whats the writing and i told him you can send written messages. He was genuinely amazed.! There was a Hamish family on the bus and he was telling me all about their style of living. They dont use electricity or any modern appliances that we all take for granted. They did look strange the way they dress, like something from the last century.
Oh well hostel here is really nice, very spacious although the corridors and toilets remind of the hospital. Big and white and look like they've been sterilised. Buffalo is really weird city i feel, its like a ghost town. I arrived on Friday night at 7pm and had to walk for 15 mins to the hostel and didnt see a soul!! And im staying on main street. They have a tramway that runs up and down up and down the street all day and its always empty!! Im really suprised cos everyone apparently passes through here to go to Niagra. Where are they all then, its the weekend! Theres a TGI's down the street and thats empty aswell. Theres a cinema next door so i went to see Oceans 13, showing at 8.50pm and there was six people at it, including me!!! Its been the same today, i took a photo at 4pm on sat afternoon, ill put it on you'll see what i mean.
So 40 mins on the bus to Niagra, the falls are amazing, really stunning. ook the Maid of the Mist tour and got absolutley soaked. You can hardly see anything cos of the mist. Lots of photos of that to come. The noise from them is deafening aswell, apparently 12,000 years ago the falls were 7 miles down river but are now at the present site due to corrosion. I wonder where they will be in another couple of thousand years??
Walked over the bridge to Canada, got my passport stamped :-) Had lunch over there, you get a much better view from the Canada side, had to pay $50 cents to get back into USA. Got the bus back through the city of Buffalo and i swear i never even seen anybody beside a house or anything and i passed through a residential area. Seriously its weird. Iasked at the hostel incase its a holiday or something but they say this is normal. Alll the shops on the street are closed too, supermarkets, H&M, the Mall. Who Knows!!
Anyway i will go for now, going to Toronto on Monday so let you know how i get on there. x x x x

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