Toronto -> Seattle

I can only conclude that we are cursed to have bad luck at airports. This incident takes home the gold metal.

After dragging ourselves out of bed and our hostel (the place where they kept the TV on the dresser in the closet. Oh did I mention the room before this, I don't believe so. When you opened the door it would hit the dresser that was far to big for the room itself but management decided it needed to be crammed in there whether or not there was enough space.) at some ungodly hour (5:57am), we made it to our check-in gate in good time, only to discover that our mid-way stop off to Chicago was currently besieged by bad weather/the rapture and that we were going to shuffled onto another flight.....9 hours later.

Cue much more hanging around in airports. We did have the option if possibly getting on an earlier flight from Toronto to Vancouver to Seattle flight but we were lazy. F'it.

We had asked the Air Canada lady when the earliest we could check-in was, to my surprise she answered 4 hours before the flight. It shouldn't take that long right? Luckily we have some time to spare.

It was time to check-in and go through customs, now here was the shocker was they told us to stand in the line to our left which snaked around to part 2, the line to the right which snaked around to the customs desks. I cannot say how long we were in this line for but we did finish two crosswords! Now that I think about it I should have taken a photo of the lengthy line.

Danny was electronically finger printed, stamped and waved on through to security were we stood in another cue.

On the other side we made ourselves comfy behind the Starbucks on their couches. A mere couple hours later we were asked to move from one gate to another gate. A short while later we were asked again to move back to the previous gate. Seriously?!

It was soon time to board our flight (luckily this one is direct from Toronto to Seattle) The gentleman at the counter told us that due to the fact that we were on stand by we might not get on this flight. NOW THEY TELL US THIS??!!! So if all goes wrong we were going to spend an evening in Vancouver [overnight] or Calgary airport. Lame Sauce.

We waited impatiently for our names to be called, FINALLY the announcement was made for us to board. Phew! Woohoo! They had to last minute seat us so when we made it onto the plane we got 1st class, or was it business class? Either way it sure was freaking cushy. Free alcoholic beverages and the fanciest meal I have ever had on a plane. I guess this is payment for our 9 hour wait and being moved around Toronto airport. I'm pretty sure that I will not be returning to Toronto anytime soon....

Almost 5 hours later we have made it to States, I thought we would never make it but then again I always think that.

After finally arriving in Seattle, we rode a talking train downtown and found our hotel with relative ease. The place was pretty awesome (the creep who checked in the same time as us, less so) full to the brim with art, and our room's walls adorned with many very expressive hot dogs looking down on us and tonnes of space. The hostel was very busy, so in order to take advantage of the burgeoning social atmosphere we went straight to bed. Oh yeah, the hostel's name was City Hostel Seattle check it out. I would totally recommend staying there!

Return to Toronto

Since Jen has decided to throw her laptop at me, roll over and give up typing for the day, I guess I'll have to write this post as well as finishing off the last one. Life is hard.

Our return journey to Toronto took far too long. The train was delayed for over an hour whilst it was searched (it has just come over the border from the US so the mean-lookin' customs dudes were all over it), and the crowd very nearly turned into a mob before we were finally allowed to board. End result, we didn't get back into town until about 9:30pm, and it was gone 10 by the time we reached our new hostel and found to our horror that the terrible painting from the last one was here as well.

GET OUT OF MY LIFE BAD ART

We spent the evening planning how best to tackle the three places left on our City Pass in the time we had left, and then ended up sleeping in and cocking the plan of action up completely. We skipped the castle and went straight to the Science Center, which was a bit underwhelming and far too school-trip-oriented for our tastes, although there was some fun stuff to play with and some cool turtles, as May 24th is World Turtle Day.

It's MY day, where are my presents?

After passing an hour fiddling with science we set off to the zoo, the journey to which left us stuck on the TTC for another hour. Still, we made it, and found out that the zoo was open til late and we probably could have squeezed in the castle after all - oh well. Comparing the price of going everywhere separately vs. the City Pass we still made a saving, and left our last passes at the hostel for some lucky travelers to make use of.

The zoo was quite impressive, with lots of animals from all over the world. We reached the hippos in time to hear their keeper talk about them and feed them apples. We encountered the Worst Enemy of Jen, a capybara that did nothing wrong, and high fived a peacock.

Poor rhino only had a faker for company.

I will kill you with my eyes.

Capybara Must Die.

'Oh no, I just fell over and spent ten minutes trying to get up. The only logical thing I can do now is fall over again!'

Having successfully navigated the zoo, we dragged ourselves back across town to our hostel and gorged ourselves on pizza and lasagne and a bottle of Dr. Pepper fit for Thor himself. Tomorrow, we fly out to Seattle; soon we'll be renting a car and driving out to the gorge for Sasquatch - the first music festival for both of us in at least two years.. We are indescribably thrilled. The fact that this time tomorrow we will never have to ride the TTC ever again is also a nice thought.

Full Day At Niagara Falls

After speaking with the owner of the Hostel (Patrick) who was well informed about the Niagara area. Having been a traveler himself he was very experienced and had boundless travel stories to share. Meeting some travelers since he wasn't just talking to us about Niagara and the sights to see there. We were all recommended to see the whirlpool.

We made some new friends and then we were off to the whirlpool we considered going on the Aero Car but then decided to just go down to the whirlpool instead. See it up close!

Above the Aero Car

Going down the hill.

Path down or was it up?

 

On the `beach`

Finally made it.

After a couple a tries we went down a most inconvenient route, finally making it to the shore. We had a celebratory cigar and some photographs were taken.

For our way back to the car we found a much easier and suitable path with man made stairs. Why didn't we take this path going down? This was a crawl upwards that we all could do, instead of a mud slide all the way down a steep cliff.

A quick stop to the washrooms so everyone could wash off the mud accumulated we agreed it was time to eat since we all worked up a vicious appetite. Off to the Rainforest Cafe. This was the first time I had ever eaten here, it was quite the entertaining experience with indoor thunderstorms, live and robotic animals indoors in a jungle theme restaurant. I quite liked it.

I even got to witness a lady being scared to the point where she actually jumped and screamed by an electronic snake. Woohoo.

Go electronic snake.

With lunch in the past, we said goodbye to our new friends as they set off home, and we decided it was time to stop skirting the subject and go see this waterfall everyone was talking about. The inestimable Patrick, our hostel's owner, had recommended the 'Maid of the Mists' boatride, as well as a terrifying sounding jetboat that blasted its way through the rapids. Since we were short on time before our train back to Toronto, and didn't want to get drenched, we decided to go for the Maid of the Mists. The ride costs about 20 bucks pp and takes you literally 20 feet away from the falls; first you coast by the pretty American falls, for photo opportunities, before descending into the watery hell that is the bowl of the Canadian horseshoe falls, where you WILL get wet. Thankfully we were given ridiculous raincoats to wear (although there was one hardcore dude who stuck it out in his t-shirt), so were able to wring them out upon return and remain relatively dry.

So many seagulls!

What a trooper

So much for not wanting to get drenched. At least the cold water was very refreshing, as we were pretty exhausted by this point. We dragged ourselves back to the hostel to pick up our bags and found that Patrick had vanished. Whilst we floundered a very helpful dude tracked down our bags AND called us a taxi, so that turned out okay, especially when said taxi turned up literally a minute later, and engaged us with interesting chit-chat about how he loved driving for eight hour straight periods like a crazy man, before dropping us off at the train station.

Evening in Niagara

We were invited by the staff at the hostel to attend a Swedish  band playing at the bar called Yanks down the street and around the corner of where we were staying. We made it there after our shower since we both think we deserve a drink for a hard days work of traveling and sight seeing in Toronto.

At the bar we learned that the liquor store closes at 5pm. The band turned out to be fantastic (Dime Store Junkies) Check them out!

I totally recommend the hostel called ACBB on McGrail Ave I believe it is 25 dollars CAD / per night in the dorm.  A great price, friendly staff (Patrick) for a clean hostel with free breakfast if you wake up early enough to catch it in time. With home baked muffins.

Arrival in Niagara Falls

2 hour train ride later, we head out of the station (which is pretty much a room with seats) to find a taxi to get us to our hotel. When we spoke with the taxi driver he informed us that we had booked a hostel in New York....oops. It was going to cost us 30 dollars to get us to the boarder and then another 10 dollars to get us to the hostel and then the hostel price on top of that.

What should we do now?

Back into the Via Rail station receptionist for some help, she very kindly called and booked us a private room close to the falls for 60 dollars. We decided to walk down River Ave for 45 minutes to save some money.

 

We had to make a turn onto Clifton Hill, I haven't seen hustle and bustle like this since BKK. Finally after bowling through the large crowds of tourists we finally made it to the hostel. Time to shower off the dirty and find something to do.

Clifton Hill