Niagara Falls

My role as Mommaduck continued but although I got us safely to the hostel, we kinda did circle the block first. It was dark and I missed the street sign!!!

passing the American falls

Although we had 2 nights here, we only had 1 day. An early morning it was! As appreciative of the free breakfast I was, the teasing kettle but no teabags was just a little too much to handle. Instead I filled up on toast before we trekked down to the centre of the action. We bought ourselves an adventure day pass, which gave us access to most of the main attractions. I think it lasts for a weekend, but we were going to cram it all into one day. The first attraction was the Maid of the Mist. How could it have been anything else?? It was possibly the last weekend of the year that she was running.

We donned the ever so attractive ponchos (the first of 3) and went aboard. The foamy stuff by the pier looked absolutely disgusting. We plonked ourselves by a railing at the front of the boat (I hope my lack of nautical terms here doesn't upset my dad) . I was sort of vying for my spot with a young girl. I felt kinda mean. I also accidentally elbowed her in the face apparently. Clearly I am a horrible, horrible person who should watch her elbows when taking photos around shorter people. The Falls themselves aren't actually as big as I thought they were; I knew they weren't the biggest in the world but still. They were still damn impressive. Oh and you get REALLY wet in the pool of the Horseshoe falls. The spray goes up higher than the waterfall. Sadly, my poncho wasn't really long enough to stop my legs getting drenched. After we had disembarked, i sought out a hand dryer. The one I found was broken so I resorted to dabbing my legs dry(or drier) with paper towels. I'm so cool. In the meantime, Hannah was yet again indulging her love of squished pennies and getting any available by borrowing all sorts of coins from anyone and everyone.
From there we headed closer to the falls for our next 2 attractions. Sadly, on our way there I asked a passerby to take a photo of us.  >>> Said passerby managed to take the photo but then dropped my camera and broke the lens. My history with digital cameras is appalling. I shouldn't be allowed to own one in truth, but as though that's going to stop me. I was gutted. The woman was also feeling pretty guilty and gave me money to get it fixed. So my photos looked like this.one below. Bad times

Amazingly, whilst mooching around the gift shop at Table Rock, after some prodding, poking and generally abusing my camera The lens went back it. Trying my luck, I wondered whether it would come out if I turned the camera on again. AND IT DID!! It focused and did everything a good little camera should. WAHEYYYYY!!!
Stop 2 was Niagara's Fury. Sounds interesting enough and we were given another poncho. It was a 4D effects things. Yes I know, what is 4D? It means that the floor rumbled and moved and we got wet. A bit. It was a pretty effective way to explain the history of the falls though to be fair. By this point I was starving, but since we had an allotted time for Journey Behind the Falls (at least I think we did) we didn't have time for lunch, just a quick snack. Chocolate and crisps : Healthy!!
Stop 3 was less exciting than it sounded but it got you pretty close to the falls and you also got another poncho, this time in a sexy yellow colour. It had lots of information about random Fall-related things. Did you know the first person to go over in a barrel was a 63 year-old woman who said no-one should ever do it again?? She took her cat with her. The poor thing.

By this point it was raining and it was definitelhy time for lunch. We took some rail thing that took you about 50m (if that) up a hill purely because it was free. We then hunted down a restaurant.
We found a pretty good one. Do you know why I think it was so good?? Because, well not only was the food pretty darn good though I have no idea what I ate any more, IT HAD UNLIMITED TEA!! The waiter may have gotten fed up with sending him back and forth to refill my teapot but I was making the most of it being UNLIMITED. Potentially the best $2 I spent all day. The meals were also really big so we stayed there a while before moving on. We had to go back the way we came getting another ride on the rail thing. Our last stop was supposed to be some other Falls related thing but we arrived a little after the last tour had left so we couldn't go. By this point it was raining a fair bit but we weren't too far from the hostel so back we went.  We spent a while debating where we would be able to find the rest of the souvenirs that people wanted without trekking around in the rain.
Thankfully the rain stopped so we went back to the town centre and explored the excessively touristy main street. We got all our souvenirs though, and more which we can't say for Toronto. After some grand old purchases I insisted that everyboy ate something, even if just a snack. 3 meals a day and all that jazz!
Weighed down and realising it was pretty late we went back to the hostel to pack up our stuff.
Our bus left at 7.45 and the hostel owners were kind enough to put out breakfast early just for us! It included teabags!! I was happy. Not so happy that we didn;t realised the time and I got 1 burning hot sip before we had to run out the door.
We have reached Sunday, the last day of our travels. It was spent exactly thus. Travelling. 2 hours to Toronto, 6 hours to Montreal and 2 hours to Sherbrooke and the 20 minutes to the uni. We had a 4 hour layover in Toronto.We deposited our bags in a lock which put my stupidly good packing skills to the test and set off. We had been told that Kensington Market might be a good place for souvenirs but it was in fact a slightly creepy area. We hurried away as quick as our feet could carry us and went to the mall. Yes I'm using the word mall. Much more success, especially after a H&M trip. I bought hair accessories. Shiny, pretty ones :D Then we went for lunch before getting back to the bus station. By the time we got back to Sherbrooke, which was quite late, my bum cheeks were killing. It was an excellent week's worth of travels, even if it did rinse me of money. I love travelling!