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Published: September 7th 2012
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Niagara Falls
This is what the falls look like from America. After our exciting evening by the Rochester airport, we got an early start to try to get as close to Chicago as possible. It’s about a 9 hour drive from Rochester to Chicago, plus we wanted to stop at Niagara Falls en route. It was a pretty seamless drive into Niagara, but we totes forgot that it was Labor Day Weekend. Yikes stripes. We probably spent the same amount of time driving around one block trying to find parking as we did actually looking at the falls. The place was completely packed, and there were tons of Indian food stands right outside the park entrance. Is this pertinent? I don’t know, but I found it pretty interesting. Plus it smelled delicious everywhere.
When we walked into the park, we were able to get right up next to the falls. We could see that the Canadian side was definitely a better view. There was also a ferris wheel and casinos across the border. However, we were on a time restraint and Rob can’t go into Canada just yet. Once we cross into Canada, he has three months until his visa expires so we want to make sure he has enough time
Ali and Niagara
This is what I look like in front of the falls. to get an American Thanksgiving in before he goes back across the pond.
Anyhoo, Niagara was still outstanding and so so loud. The water is a beautiful turquoise color. We tried to convince Rob to get into a barrel and try to make it down the waterfall but he didn’t do it. Lame. Since we still had a long drive ahead, we quick grabbed some food (not Indian, but the BBQ and corn we got instead was dece) and got back into the car to complete 7 more hours of driving.
We pulled off the highway around 1am and found a string of cheap motels, and tried one named “Dollar Motel” which was thankfully booked. When we went up to try to ask for availability (only after Rob struggled through the parking lot for about 8 minutes and then yelled at us when we were talking while he was concentrating on parking the car…), we could only talk to a person through seemingly bullet proof glass. Pretty sketch. Anyhoo, we found a not so sketchy other motel nearby and settled for the night.
The next day, we had a pretty short drive into Chicago. We rolled in
The Bean
Skyline in the reflection! and luckily there was a Starbucks attached to our hotel. We needed to kill some time before we could check in, so Abi and I decided to spend the time doing homework. I clearly had like 5 assignments due that night, 3 of which were incomplete by mid-afternoon. We spent some time reading and writing and people watching, and then walked down to Millennium Park to check out the Bean and the fountains. Homework was still not finished, but we needed a break. I believe that I turned in my last assignment at 11:59 for a midnight deadline. Well done, Mills.
We wanted to do a
Ferris Beuller’s Day Off tour of the city and/or a
Fugitive tour, but alas, there wasn’t enough time. Plus, the river wasn’t green nor was there a parade. Here is a list of other things we did instead during our short time in the city: ate pizza, walked the Magnificent Mile (some of us had better self control shopping than others…), ate hot dogs, went to Navy Pier (much warmer and less crowded than my last visit + the ferris wheel was pretty fun/scary/good views), enjoyed free happy hour at the hotel, saw
Home Alone House
Keep the change you filthy animal. our third Great Lake in a week, spilled coffee all over my shirt (followed later that day by spilling mustard on my pants), saw some bomb art, ate more hot dogs, gave a strawberry milkshake to a homeless man, and then rolled out. It was such a great time to be there because it wasn’t super touristy but also still warm.
On the way out of town, we saw (for some of us…) the most glorious sight in the world. We drove to Winnetka, and saw the Home Alone house. Just magnificent. There were some people on the street, so we felt kind of silly getting out and posing, but the house is so cool. The neighborhood definitely looks different than it’s presented in the movie, but still a great sight. Then again, the movie was made over 20 years ago, so it’s possible that there’s been a bit of development in that time. After driving around the block several times to get a good look, we left Illinois and made our way into Wisconsin for the night.
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