Friday, November 9, 2012

Where's this?

yes.... niagara falls. we went there the past weekend, finally! it was quite a drive, some 8 hours, on a mostly booooring highway (and we had to pay a lot of toll, in total perhaps 20 dollars). we both had never been there. first we watched them from the american site (as you can see above). we went to the information booth along the highway. we got some booklets, but there was absolutely nothing about the canadian side! not even the roads were marked (and canada is right across). as the man behind the counter said; "well, yes, guess which side we are trying to promote here, huh". we also discovered our tomtom is for the usa only, it was blank as soon as we crossed the border, haha.
as you can see, there are a lot of hotels with a view of the falls. and the ones you see here are just a few. there is basically an entire entertainment circus built along the falls. casinos, shops, hotels, restaurants. very touristy, nothing outstanding... really, it was so cool to see the falls! yes, ive seen pictures, but seeing and hearing it in real is so different! but i think it would be nicer if you would first have to walk through a forest or something, and then they suddenly appear...(imagine the explorers that discovered these falls!). now it was walking through a forest of signs for how to pay for parking, where your hotel is, or where you should eat. beeehhhhh.... on saturday it was pretty crowded, but we stayed another night (as driving 8+  hours on 2 consecutive days would be a bit too much), and on sunday the little entertainment town was dead. yes, all the restaurants were open, only hardly anyone was there... 
anyways, we really enjoyed seeing the falls for real. i took a lot of pictures, but none does them justice. you should go there in person! (and ignore the "ballentent" as we dutch would call that circus of hotels and casinos around it)