I was awoken at 9:30am by people filming a documentary. These people were separate from the previous documentary I was filmed in; there were more people and more crew. It was chaos! The two french girls and Tania were all packing to leave around ten to go to Quebec City (I would have gone if I hadn't ended up visiting Chris) and Marco had to go to work... All of us were packing and running around, so there was lots to film! I was trying to eat as much of my food as I could, so I wouldn't have to carry it everywhere. The chaos was short lived though - soon enough everyone was gone. I was pretty much done packing, but I had to shove the food in my bag still.
I ended up being the only one there, which was nice. I rested. Shai came over and gave me the book he was exchanging for my Hitchiker's Guides. It's called "Three Cups of Tea". Should be interesting :)
I took off with the backpack to meet my ride for 2pm. I got there ten minutes early, so thankfully she showed up on time. There was another person coming too, so we all put our stuff in the trunk and took off.
I had a hard time remembering their names because they were both odd and both started with M. The driver was a little asian girl, a student at McGill, and the fellow passenger was a young guy from france I think. He had lived in Vancouver so there was lots of conversation there. The girl knew her movies, so between talking to the two of them and sleeping the 5 1/2 hour car ride went by really quickly!
I arrived in Toronto around 8 ish? Took the subway into town, and found the hotel. Chris had gotten lost so he was running behind, but I only had to wait ten minutes in the lobby before they showed up so I could drop off my bag. We got ready fast and went out exploring!
Toronto gets such a bad rap - I really don't understand it. I mean, even the aussie guy I was staying with for the first week in Montreal was ragging on Toronto when he came back from his weekend there. He claimed it was too business oriented (as if any big city isn't) and it was too "hip hop". I saw way more neon leggings and hoodies yes, but it didn't bother me... the first thing I thought when I got there was "this kind of reminds me of New York". It has big billboards. It has lots of people. There are hot dog stnads all over, and people are still walking on the streets at night.
It was also WAY warmer than Montreal for some reason. I was happy aobut this!
Chris, Megan and I wandered looking for a patio and beer, since it was so nice out. I was wearing a t shirt at night outside for the first time since New Orleans. The streets were clean, people were out, and we wandered down until we saw a patio with space.
Turns out we found the perfect place! It was under a record store, beside a head shop, there was local art all over the walls, and it had a really good live band. It was a small place too, so we tried some Amsterdam beer, and ended up trying a lot of it.
There were some very silly VERY drunk photos taken of this night but they are on meg's camera predominantly so I still have to get them. I have one of us hugging this sketchy tree art thing...
Meg is from Detroit and had never had drunken-poutine before! Although skeptical while not drinking, she converted once trying it with me. Chris maintains his oppositional stance and I think he is crazy.
Things got a bit hazy at this point, but from what I was told the next day, we missed our turn to walk back to the hotel and just kept walking down the street for a long time, so we took a cab from wherever we were.
I woke up with a killer hangover. I had not slept long enough because of stupid check out time... I wanted to sleep in the car but that would be silly without eating first.
So we checked out, dropped my bag in the trunk, and went out to a place called Fran's for breakfast.
I was too hung over to eat right away, and still felt like lying down. The lovely part abut traveling is it makes you so much less self conscious in public situations. I lay down on the bench side, and I didn't really care if it looked weird. I ended up falling asleep on the bench after I ordered... until the food came haha. I nibbled, and it helped as much as it could.
Unfortunately, Fran's had very bright lighting, some trippy mirror panels, music, light purple 50's style decor, and a screaming child to deal with. Don't get me wrong, the place was awesome (had lots of awards for best late night dining) but it would be better at 4am. Like when people go to Denny's (they had 24 breakfast). Almost everyone around us seemed to be a gay man too, including all the waiters. Ours was dancing to Micheal Jackson while checking up on us haha!
We all needed to get out of there. Once I was outside, with a little food in me, I was much better.
We walked around, looked in a few stores, walked some more.
I ate more of my leftovers, but it was getting soggy and I wanted to heat it up before eating it again. When we all got hungry again, we went up to a restaurant right at the main square, but up a ton of levels so we had this crazy view! It was rad - again we got to enjoy sunshine and warm weather :)
I was trying to decide what to do about afterward though. The drive back to Detroit was about 5 hours apparently. I had suggested us seeing Niagara Falls at some point, but it was not going to make sense for us to drive all the way back to Detroit, then go all the way back to Niagara. It would be best to see it... now?
This was an on the spot decision: If I was going to Niagara all of a sudden, it would not be optimal to go back to Detroit after... it would make more sense to go to New York after, perhaps the day after.
We came back to the hotel where we had left the car in parking, grabbed my laptop, and came up to use the internet to see if this would work. If I could find somewhere to stay for the night in Niagara, and a bus/train that left from there, then it was a go.
I found a hostel that said they had availability so I wrote down the address and phone number etc, then looked up buses and it turns out it is incredibly easy to get to New York by bus from the buffalo region. Megabus even had a stop in Niagara Falls (the only other Canadian stop they have is Toronto I think, so it was pretty crazy when I saw the option).
It was a go then!
It doesn't take long to get there - only about an hour and a half... we got there while there was still daylight, but it looked like it might get dark soon. It was perfect timing: we got hot drinks, saw the falls, walked along, and it got dark. We went inside a building to warm up and figure out where this hostel was in relation to where we were...
The lights came on when we were outside again! It was spectacular!
I was so happy we got to see the falls :) It was such a spontaneous journey so I think the results were felt a little deeper. There was no time to build up what the falls would be like, so there was only appreciation :)
I had some fun with my camera haha
By now it was getting late, and Chris and Meg still had to drive back to Windsor/Detroit. We found the hostel so easily, but no one answered the door at first. I was thinking "oh crap I didn't think about check in times, there might be no reception on duty so I might be locked out and sol!" Chris called, but there was no answer in there. Someone opened the door though, and at first I thought it was the owner. Turns out it was a guest, just an older guest, but he said the owner was out at the casino and he's pretty laid back so I should be fine. I met a couple aussies, and a couple from ireland/soemwhere else. Carl (another aussie) was a staffer, and confirmed they had room, and that it should be fine, people might be going out whenever Patrick gets back...
Patrick didn't get back by midnight and by then for some reason I was getting sleepy. I decided it was time to sleep, so that's what I did.
My first full day in Niagara was beautiful. There was a little breakfast deal in the morning, and after getting ready I went down and met Patrick. I had been warned that I would need half an hour trying to get out the door because he is chatty, so I was curious.
It took well over half an hour to get out the door.
We talked for ages, then he decided to come with me to walk down to the waterfall. The maid of the mist was not open yet, which was too bad, but the boat was in the water ready to go soon!
I was really lucky that I was with Patrick, because he was a walking encyclopedia on the place. He knew all sorts of stuff about the history, how the waterfall was made (not erosion), all sorts of stuff. He recommended a couple books once the conversation got a little more philisophcal. Eventually all the walking made food the next thing on the itinerary. He showed me an all you can eat chinese buffet in the casino with a nice view of things. After that we walked back to the hostel, since he was supposed to be working haha.
I decided on a bus to NYC. I thought the next afternoon sounded good - got me into town after Elliot would be off work - so that was that. I packed up a bit, and then picked out what I wanted to do now that it was my last day.
A lot of the attractions in Niagara are very cheesy. There was Rilpey's believe it or not, Guinnes Book of Records, or the giant wheel thing to see the city and the falls. The rest (and there was a lot) didn't appeal to me. It was still nice out though, so I opted for the giant wheel. They had a coupon at the hostel, and Patrick and Carl ended up wanting to come with me on the wheel, so we all left.
The wheel was cool. I don't know what else to say about that. My photos from it are crappy sorry.
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Post wheel was cheap food from somewhere you would never guess: the keg. I had not been to one in a long time, but I was informed that they split meals for free, so you could go get a steak dinner for 25 bucks, but they would bring each of you a plate with full sides on each, and each a salad before. So you pay half the price, but all that's missing is half a steak. I could barely finish mine as it was.
We drank a bit in there too, the hockey games were on so we watched some of that.
Niagara is very chill, but still very entertaining :)
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