Road Trip - Niagra, Toronto and Montreal
Trip Start
Apr 20, 2008
1
32
70
Trip End
Ongoing
Toronto,
Ontario,
Canada
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
After getting lost, or missing turn offs a few times trying to get to the Canadian border we finally made it to the Canadian town of Niagra Falls where we went straight to the bus station to pick up my sister Madeleine who had arrived in Toronto two days earlier
Road trip
. We found a hotel and headed out for some food. As we drove along the street all of a sudden we came across the waterfalls... there they were just right next to us, visible from the road... having just visited Iguazu which are out in the middle of a national park only accessible by paying an entrance fee and taking a 20 minute train out to them, this was not what I was expecting! The falls are literally in the middle of two cities and visible at night because they are lit up with different coloured lights. We had a great dinner and then wandered around for a while down near the river. The whole place is light up with neon and signs and there are a bunch of arcades and shops and Ripleys believe it or not museums and a casino and the whole place was just so damn.... American...After visiting the waterfalls in the morning we left for Tonronto. It was only a couple of hours drive so we arrived in the afternoon to be greeted by rain. It took us a while to find a hotel so there wasn't a whole lot of time ofr sightseeing. We went out to a nice Thai restaurant and then visited a few bars. We had a beer at a local bar before heading to the éntertsainment district'. We eventually found a cool little bar with a live band playing where we spent the rest of our evening. Madeleleine went back to her place in Toronto as we were heading to Montreal as soon as could drag ourselves out of bed
The Happiness Inn
.Toronto seemed like a very cool city from what we saw of it as did Montreal. The latter being perhaps a bit more interesting being in the French speaking province of Quebec. We discovered oce hitting thestreets of Montreal that we had happened to com eon the day of the closing ceremony of a festival called 'just for laughs' that had been going on for the last couple of weeks. There was a whole street shut off with a whole lot of stuff happening as well as a parade being prepared for. We hung around for the parade which was full of people dressedup mainly in white all having something to do with winter. Perhaps the best partof the parade was the hats that ALL the spectators were wearing, including us... There were white paper hats in the shape of Christmas trees.. I didn't really get it but EVERYONE was wearing them!!!!
After the parade was over I wanted to check out the underground pedestrian system. This is an underground obviously.. but is a series of connected underground tunnels, a whole 33 kms of them infact that connect different point sof the city. This combined with the subway means it is possible to gret almost anywhere without having t go out and brave the cold. We are talking about a city that has long cold frigid winters with metres of snow.. Canada seems cool. The people don't seem as loud and obnoxious as the Americans. It was very convenient that American dollars were accepted everywhere in Canada. It was not so convenient that the Canadian change that we got was not ACCEPTED anywhere in the US!
