Had a fantastic night’s sleep in our lovely hotel suite, the
bed was very comfy and once again it was big enough to allow movement without
Natalie wafting cold air into the bed; this made me very happy. We went
downstairs for the complimentary breakfast buffet, when we’d booked the room I
don’t think either of us realised there was free parking or breakfast included
in the £53, so things just kept getting better and better at the Comfort
Suites!
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Waffle machine! |
The breakfast included a wide variety of food, the best
thing being waffles. That we had to make ourselves, in a waffle iron that you
pour the mixture in and flip the machine over! We were very excited about this.
An American woman who was stood next to us watched while we documented the fun
and laughed at how enthusiastic about making our first ever waffle, I suppose
it’s a bit like us seeing someone getting excited about a toastie machine.
As we were finishing breakfast, the fire alarm went off. We
couldn’t tell if it was a false alarm or not and it was all very exciting, we
started to make our way to the exits, I wondered if somehow our travel adapter
had set our room on fire, but it just turned out to be one of the other guests
burning some toast. Phew.
When we had finished breakfast and checking out, we had a
little wander around Buffalo, which intermittently smells of fried food, but
not in a bad way. It’s a nice city but there wasn’t anything in particular that
we had planned to see so we had a quick look at some of the pretty buildings
like the City Hall, then left for Niagara.
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City Hall in Buffalo. Looks a bit like a space invader. |
We decided to take the advice ‘John Candy’ had given us
yesterday and rather than just follow the satnav up to Niagara, we crossed over
the Peace Bridge from Buffalo into Canada. We left the interstate and followed
a very quiet, scenic road north along the Niagara River. This was one of the
most beautiful drives we’ve ever been on; the sun was shining, there wasn’t a
cloud in the sky, the river was wide, there were some lovely houses but they
were set far enough back to ensure they didn’t ruin the view and we had to slow down to wait for some
geese and deer to cross the road. In a nutshell, it was perfect.
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Canada, very easy to get into. |
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Niagara River |
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Geese in the road |
We checked into our room earlier than we were supposed to
and kept our fingers crossed that the view was going to be as spectacular as
the website had looked when we’d booked it. When we walked into the split level
suite the upstairs didn’t have a view at all, we made our way downstairs and to
the window. The view was so amazing that Natalie actually fist pumped the air. We
stood in awe for a few minutes then decided to go down to get a closer look at
them making sure we put on some warm clothes as it was pretty cold when the
wind got up.
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Awesome view of the Horseshoe falls... |
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...and the American Falls |
We went to see the American Falls first, they were pretty
impressive, and then we made our way up to the Horseshoe Falls, which were very
impressive. We could get really close to them and for a minute it was a bit
scary, imagining what would happen if you fell over!
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American falls |
(Laura has now gone to
bed, so I shall carry on writing this bit…) Next to the falls is the Behind
The Falls attraction, so we paid our $12 and for that we got whisked down an
elevator to a viewing platform at the foot of the falls. The view was
staggering as millions of cubic metres of water rushed by.
Back at the top of the falls we made our way to Clifton Hill
for some food and entertainment. We went to the Hard Rock Café and ordered a
pulled pork sandwich and a burger. When the food came the portions were HUGE!
The food was yummy and we ate as much as we could before staggering up the hill
to the amusement arcades.
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Giant sign |
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So much food |
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How I looked after dinner |
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Skee ball |
In the arcade, Laura discovered her love of Skee Ball. We
spent lots of tokens on trying to get the ball into the high scoring holes. By
the end we’d amassed a massive stack of prize tickets, which we duly fed into
the ticket counting machine – and we had 93! Woohoo! Wondering what prizes we
could get, we went to the counter and it was enough to get us… a pencil shaped
like a hockey stick and 3 erasers. Ooooooooh!
After a quick pit-stop at the hotel room and a facetime call
back to the UK (Hi Mum! Hi Dad! Sorry everyone else, but if you don’t answer
it’s not my fault!) we then went to the Skylon tower and rode the scary
hanging-on-the-outside variety of elevator up the viewing platform 775 feet
above the falls.
The view was spectacular, although it was a little bit
chilly on the open air deck (much warmer on the inside deck). We hung around at
the top and watched the sun go down over the distant horizon. Laura pointed out
a city in the distance and I recognised the distinctive shape of the CN Tower,
meaning it must be Toronto (some 50 miles away).
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Buffalo |
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Toronto (50 miles away) |
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Sunset from the Skylon Tower |
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Skylon Tower |
After descending to ground level we crossed the road and
went to the Fallsview Casino. The Casino was just like the ones in Vegas (well,
the ones that don’t have tigers and fountains) with lots of noise and flashing
lights. We set our budget at $10 each, and then hit the slots. We tried various
machines but came back to the 2c, triple reel machines as they offered the best
value for money (i.e., lots of pulling the lever and not much money
disappearing from the total money remaining figure!)
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Happy Laura |
We drank as many free diet cokes as we could and played for
what seemed like ages. Laura had a few “big” wins ($5 was the most I think) and
we actually quit before we lost all the money. How very sensible! The machines
didn’t dole out coins, everything was done on paper tickets with barcodes, so
we converted out ticket back into dollars and left having spent about $14 the
whole night. Bargain.
Back at the hotel we sat in our room and watched the
illuminated falls from the warmth of a cosy bed. A perfect end to a brilliant
day.
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Falls at night |
Thanks for the FaceTime. It was fantastic seeing you and your view of the falls. Almost as good as being there again. Love you, mum x x x
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