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Friday 16 - Monday 19 May 2008
Our first stop on our short 10 day visit to the East Coast was Toronto in Canada. The main reason for the visit was to see Sean’s Uncle Gabriel and Aunt Mary, who Sean hadn’t seen for seven years. After our busy West Coast trip, we were looking forward to spending the first three days in the one place; our longest, unbroken stop yet.
Again our timing worked out rather well. Canada was refreshingly green after coming from California, with new foliage on all the trees. It was also much cooler and our jackets were worn whenever we were outside.
Getting to Toronto from California involved two flights and amounted to a full day of travelling. The first flight was from LAX to JFK (as part of our round the world tickets) and the second was a connecting flight with DELTA airlines to Toronto, which we’d booked in San Diego. We were worried about making the DELTA flight as massive rainstorms caused our arrival into JFK to be delayed by 45mins. We need not have been concerned though, because the inclement weather had turned JFK into a chaotic air traffic control
nightmare and our connecting flight was also initially delayed by 75mins. The Terminal was seriously crowded, and we ended up camping out on the carpet until boarding.
Once on the plane we waited another two full hours on the tarmac before taking off. I was just relieved to be on the flight, but Sean was (rightfully) concerned because Gabriel and Sharelle were waiting for us at the airport and by the time we got home and had a chat, didn’t get to bed until about 3am.
Our whole visit to Canada was wonderful, mainly because of how great Gabriel, Mary and Sean’s cousins were to us. After a sleepy Saturday morning, Gabriel and Sharelle drove us into Toronto to visit CN Tower and do some sightseeing. CN Tower is currently the tallest building in the world, but is about to be pipped by one under construction in Dubai. We had great views from the main floors, with glass bottom floors, but also went to the taller observation pod (at about 450m). Having never been to a baseball game, we were also very keen to glimpse in at the Rogers Stadium, which is home to an impressive baseball stadium.
We had dinner with Keira and family and in the evening went for a walk around the beautiful grounds and buildings of Guelph University. Oh, I was also amazed at the long days. There was still faint light at 9.30pm and in the evenings everything has an orange glow.
On Sunday, Gabriel and Mary took us to Niagra Falls, which certainly lived up to my expectations. We took the scenic route and stopped off at a regional winery. Gabriel explained that we were from Australia and would be choosing some wine for dinner. The guy said his father was from Australia and we think he must have thought Australians are wine connoisseurs because he gave us a VIP tasting. We sampled so much wine, but each tasting was nicer than the one before, so we had to keep going. In the end, we tried the $70 and $125 bottles, which had ‘no tasting available’ written under the notes (they were very nice wines, but just a little beyond our budget).
It was raining and quite cold, but I think this just made Niagra Falls even more impressive. Sean and I walked all the way up to the edge
of the Canadian Falls (the most impressive ones) and then boarded the Maid of the Mist VI. Our blue Maid of the Mist ponchos may not have been the most stylish items around (reference photos), but they were definitely needed because of all of the spray from the waterfalls. Sean and I had a great time on the little boat and still don’t know how they managed to safely get so close to the Falls.
The town of Niagra itself was a little more surprising. The neon signs, ice cream and sweet shops, haunted houses and game shops gave the place a funfair like atmosphere. It sort of reminded me of a Gold Coast, but for younger kids.
On our last evening we visited Sean’s other cousin Dympna and had a divine, gourmet dinner cooked by her husband Greg. Greg will be cooking dinner again when they visit us in Australia.
Come Monday, neither Sean or I wanted to leave Canada, and our pending 19 hour (!) bus journey didn’t help. We left Toronto at midday bound for Washington DC via New York. The border crossing into the US was the strictest yet and took us about
an hour to get through. We arrived at New York at midnight and then two hours later boarded another bus for the 4.5 hour journey to Washington DC.
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