Our trip to the Niagara Falls

yellow school bus
Our yellow schoolbus
(Source: http://www.rlcharters.ca/aboutus.htm
last reviewed on: August 19, 2004)
We traveled on august, 7th 2004 to the Niagara Falls with the YUELI the York University English Language Institute, wich organized the trip (riding the yellow school buses looks nice, but it hurts the back...)

After about 2 hours road trip we arrived like many other thousand turists at a bus-park. "6 and a half hours all of you are back right here." and a very bad "map" of the area was all we got from our guide. So far so good. On the map were two streets, a lot of big icons for attractions like the World Wrestling Entertainment Store, the Hard Rock Cafe, Marvel Adventure City, Planet Hollywood, and a big casino.... "Why are we here?", we thought after a short time,... we couldn't find the Falls on the map. This was not the last thing we wondered about...

At first we walked down the Falls-street like all others to take some photos from the falls, looked down the wall towards the water and just standing there and enjoying the impression.

Here we splitted up our group, one part decided to go over the bridge to the USA (wich turned out later to be good for buying cheaper beer than in canada), another part walks ahead with the crowd. We decided to find out the washrooms first ;)
Our next station was the Maid of the Mist, a boat driving very close to the water. All passsanger got blue plastic ponchos (which we could use at the canoe tour later) to protect against water. To be on a boat close to the masses of water was very impressing, especially looking up and feeling so small was awesome.
maid of the mist
Ancient Maid of the Mist
(Source: http://www.infoniagara.com/d-att-maid.html
last reviewed on: August 19, 2004)
After this trip we were hungry and wanted to eat something solid. For a short time on the lake we actuallly forgot that we were on the fast food continent. We walked around about an hour searching the best "restaurant" and landed in Niagara Falls City, the "promised land" of the map... . And it was awful! Everywhere fairy lights, nervingly loud voices, a huge amount of people and Niagara Falls attractions wherever you look. Maid of the Mist
Maid of the Mist in action(own)

The city built around the Niagara Falls was so kitchy and trashy amusing us, that there were moments we stood on the street, watched each other and recognized that we were there because of the Falls, and not for seeing the city of Niagara Falls.

At 7 o'clock we finally leaved the Niagara Falls with a lot of different impressions in our (back hurting) yellow school bus.

All things considered, for me it was an unforgettable trip, and not only positiv tempered.


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