The continental breakfast in the lobby was a wonderful way to say happy birthday don't you think. Shannon didn't expect the 50 person reception for breakfast, but the tour bus full of people from Holland were only too happy to let us join them in the breakfast room which was built to accommodate 35 people. I had noticed one of the family members had an envelope with the name Vandenberg, so I asked about them and as I had a pen in my purse with Vandenberg Cattle Farms on it, I gave them a souvenir from Canada.
8:30 a.m. finds us making our way back down to the falls for a last photo op session. As we round the bend Shannon gasps "look they have already started". She pauses and then realizes what she has just implied.....like the falls get turned off at night to conserve water.......those Ontarians truly are green friendly!
Driving Laws? what are those?
I have learned why Shannon has not written a book on driving. It is becasue she refuses to follow driving rules anyway. After breaking at least 5 commonly known driving "guidelines" while looking for an internet cafe last night, and failing, we parked in three different no parking zones so we could take some glorious photos of Niagara Falls lit up in a spectacular light show.
Then when we went for refreshments, she expected me to drool, hunch over and limp so she could get away with parking in the handicap only parking spot of the LCBO.... to which I responded, if you buy me enough product inside to make it worth my while I will cooperate....she bought lots.
Finally we found the Chapel of Love Internet cafe and venture in, not knowing what to expect as it is in a shabby little brick building with more signage than Dodds has liver pills. Immediately our nostrils were assaulted with a stench that burned, but we sacrificed our own comfort to get our blog posted for our many followers back home ------icky icky stinky!
After an unplanned tour of Thorold ( we momentarily lost our way), and friendly locals honking horns and waving like they know us, we were pleased to learn their local wave. They don't wave with five fingers extended. They do some kind of funky local code, each finger must have its own significance. The Welland Canal impressed us both tremendously as we watched a ship of that magnitude climb the canal of stairsteps with ease. Even if you had no internest in shipyards or ships it was as captivating as it was interesting, educational and thrilling to watch.
Casa Loma: The Auction of the Century became the Bargain of a Lifetime. Casa Loma is the Spanish name meaning "house on the hill". Casa Loma was a beautiful castle with a heartbreaking history of rags to riches and back to rags again. When Sir Henry Pellat died as a pauper, he was given a funeral of royalty with full army salute because he was so revered as a man. Thank God the elegance of the castle was left to shine without the assistance of the cheesy Hollywood theme parks of Clifton Hill.
Toronto architecture in the Casa Loma area was reminiscent of London, England in style. There is no such thing as a half hour drive in Toronto and pedestrians don't differentiate between the road and the sidewalk.
Coffee Stop at, and you guessed it, "Timmies"...(We did learn however that you can drive by a Tim Horton's without dying and without stopping in, else you would never make it through downtown Toronto in a month of Sundays.)
We made our way through China town in the rain. Everyone must have heard that it was Shannon's birthday today because they all kept honking at us as we paused momentarily in the middle of traffic to snap the perfect photo, or flipped a "u"ey to double back on something we wanted to see. Union Station from the outside was disappointing but just down from it was a beautiful piece of architecture. Of course we stopped and took photos from the car.
We drove down past the CN tower, foregoing the $21.50 each for the elevator ride to the top, just to see the fog from above. We did get a great picture of the base of the tower.
Driving through downtown snapping photos I wondered if we would inadvertently capture on film a drug deal going down and end up with some thug after us, but alas, there was a traffic cop with a striking orange cap to throw them off our trail. When we took his photo and he came over to our open car window Shannon assured him "we're tourists". Satisfied that this explained our behaviour we moved along. Then as we came out the wrong end of a one way street a cop nonchalantly looked at us with a smirk on his face and never even came around to give us alesson in Toronto driving rules. He must be friends with the one with the orange cap.
We did take a moment to do some shopping in downtown Toronto on a Friday night. We stopped at a beading shop and at craft supply store, risking pneumonia as we ran through the rain to get from our parking spot to the store.
Hopefully tomorrow we will see something other than the torrential rains that belong in April, not October.
travelbugs anonymous.......
love ya'll
until tomorrow..........
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