Niagara Falls and the Greyhound bus

Our tour bus was supposed to pick us up at aroung 9 am. However, it wasn't until 9.45 that it arrived. Nevertheless, our bus driver was a brilliant guy called Ronnie - he had the looks of an elderly old-fashioned rockstar, wearing a black suit and lots of jewlery on his fingers, however as far as I got to know, he's not solely a bus driver but is also doing music, and paintings, and sports ..., well as far as you can trust in what he says.

He guided the tour when we were on the bus. It was he that explained to us that Toronto not always used to be called Toronto. In its early days Toronto went by the name "New York". This seems to be familiar, right? True, which is why to avoid confusion with the then-called New York City in the US (which also had a different name in its beginnings: New Amsterdam), they took over the native American name for this region "Toronto" which means "The Gathering". On our way, we went pass Mississauga (again an native American name), a fastly growing city near Toronto with two iconic skyscrapers called Absolute World, which also go by the name of "Marilyn Monroe towers" because of their curvate design.

The bus ride took about 1 1/2 hours. Arriving at Niagara Falls we went straight onto the boat "Maid in the Mist" that takes your right "into" the waterfalls. The tickets for this boat were surprisingly and unfortunately not included in our tour ticket (which already cost 55$), so we had to pay an extra 20$, although it said that we would be offered a special discount. The special discount eventually led to 18$. Wow...Anyways, the boat tour was just a blast! We were given blue rain ponchos so that we wouldn't be soaked fully. Approaching to the falls, we were able to take some nice pictures, however, as we were coming closer, the dispersed water of the falls got so strong as if it would be raining cats and dogs. I covered my camera under my poncho, however after exiting the boat, I had to realise that some of the water mysteriously reached my camera and broke it down! I removed the battery but to my dismay I saw that water was gathering behind the display...Oh you can't imagine how upset/sad I was. But "life goes on", I thought - and if I put it out in the sun (it was a very nice day for sure!), maybe it will sort out to be good again in the end.

We went up on the cliffs again as hunger was starting to annoy. We went into the city nearby, which is just a terrible place of touristic crap shops (such as gambling halls, and haunted houses - why would you even think of people needing this at this place??), and had some lunch at Wendy's (burgers).

Afterwards, we headed back to the road along the cliff, going right to the edge of the waterfall. Here again, it started to "rain", but, boy, you must have seen the speed of the water! On the boat we were told that in history there were many people who went down the waterfalls either to proof something to themselves or just because they were nuts. There was one woman, around 68 years of age, covering in a barrel, going down the falls - and she survived. Unbelievable. Every minute, 1 million bath tubs can be filled with the amount of water pouring down....

Along the cliffs there are some nice parks, so we layed down on the grass in order to dry our cloth (and my camera, poor thing). At 4 pm we met the rest of the group at the bus again, there was more to see. Ronnie took us to the Rapids (a spot where the river enters a basin at high speed - there is also a gondola built by some Spanish in the late 20th c going from one side to the other) and then to a "floral clock", a mechanic clock built on a flower bed - which obviously wasn't that impressing.

We skipped Niagara-on-the-Lake, a small tourist city, and went straight to the vineyards at Lake Ontario for some ice whine tasting at an award-winning winery. We were give some instructions first (now I am a certified sommelier for sure ;)):

Step 1: Hold your glass at an angle of 45 degree

Step 2: Look for a good colour, make sure there are no stains or fruit flesh

Step 3: Shake the glass (e.g. on the back of your hand) to oxygenate the whine

Step 4: Smell it. Does it smell good? Of course it does.

Step 5: Taste it! Let it reach all parts of your mouth, as if it would be mouthrinse, to get the full taste.

(Step 6: Skip the whole procedure and just enjoy your wine, dammit!)

The white ice wine was pretty good, well it was very sweet to say at least. The red ice wine however tasted of rotten grapes (well this is what it actually is, if you know how ice wine is made).

This was the last stop before we got back to Toronto. Arriving at aroung 8pm, I didn't have much time left before going to my bus ride, so I got my luggage out of the locker room and already reserved a bed for my second stay in Toronto (the Canadiana Backpacker's Inn is quite busy, so you have to be an early bird). Next I went right to the bus terminal, partially accompanied by Anna-Marie (who I almost forgot to mention, sorry so much! - she went with me to Niagara Falls as well), she had to change hostels, because as I said the Canadiana is a quite busy place). We went to Tim Hortons (THE Canadian coffee shop) shortly, it was my first time :), and then parted from each other. I arrived at the bus terminal at 21.30 pm, my bus however started at 23 pm instead of 22.30 pm.

What happened next is all part of the long, long night Saturday, July 27th!

See the pictures below. (at 'read more'/ 'mehr lesen')

Side note

A quotation of Ronnie:

"So I asked him about a discount for my tour participants and he looked at me as if I were from another planet. So I said to him "Listen, I AM from another planet. This planet is called 'planet boycott'". So what we will do, when we arrive at that floral clock is boycotting that gift shop and not buying any of these 5$ ice creams or 5$ water bottles"

- Oh, and further: Ronnie never looked into the rear mirror when he backed up, he just honked. ;)