July 23, 2006

Vancouver -> Toronto

Finally the wait is over and on Thursday morning I boarded my flight to Toronto. Due to the time shift I arrived there in the evening and Toronto's climate was a real shocker for me. 30° C and rain while I was waiting for the bus to the car rental site (I didn't know yet that it would come worse on this trip). I picked up the worst car I've ever driven, some sort of Chevrolet. It was brand new and yet it was bad in almost all aspects. After all my 10 year old Corolla is a very decent car! Well, at least the A/C worked. It took me a bit more than 1.5 hours to find my way through Toronto's evening rush hour to Waterloo where I picked up at work. I met the happiest girl of Canada!

Downtown Vancouver with the Coastal Mountains with their snowfields and glaciers in July.

We drove to her place where she already had some good food prepared. After eating we went to see "Cars" in the theatre. Very nice movie... After a short city tour we went home to get ready for the next day - Niagara Falls.

Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls is pretty close to Waterloo (in a big country... only 2 hours). The greater Toronto area is quite the opposite to beautiful BC. Development everywhere, traffic everywhere, highways everywhere. Hot and humid air, mixed with the city's smog, especially close to Hamilton where there seems to be a lot of heavy industry. We could not see further than a couple hundret meters over the Ontario Lake.

Niagara Falls is a very strange place. It is situated right beside the city - or should one say, the city of Niagara Falls and Buffalo (on the US side) are built right beside it. Of course including highrise hotels and casinos so that the guests can have a nice view over the falls out of their rooms. The falls themselves are quite amazing, it is simply huge. The mist is very dense and it is raining hard on the visitor platforms right beside it. Before the hydro power plants have been built even more water wass flowing through the falls. Also very interesting is that the falls move further and further upstreams due to erosion (don't remeber the number, but it used to be a quite significant amount). Of course there are more than enough tourists, it's very close to too many!

Niagara Falls.

One can spend an aweful lot of money on all sorts of "Experience the Falls" tours. We decided for the cheapest of all possibilities and went down to a platform close to the falls. That was very wet and windy! But quite a nice view down there.

On the platform at the side of the Niagara Falls.

Amazing view from below the falls.

It is also possible to walk behind the falls and look at them out of two tunnels. While the idea is cool there is not too much to see but very violent water falling down right in front of the opening.

CN Tower, Toronto

Unfortunately it was raining on the day we were planning to get up to the CN Tower, world's talles building. We had a look at the weather report and went up to the tower in the morning becaus it predicted more rain for the afternoon. Well, it was almost sunny in the afernoon, but what can you do...

There are two levels on the tower, the main deck with restaurants and stores etc. and an observation deck as high up as 440 meters. On the main level they have something very neat - a glass floor! 350 meters of "nothing" underneath your feet looks quite funny.

Who can see her? Unfortunately it was really dark in there...

Once we were down again (and away from the crowds).

Towering above everything.

After the tower we were walking around in downtown for a while and it is not too bad there. The city centre is quite big and lively. After the we drove out to "India Town" to get some nice food there. made me eat Paan, that is a leaf filled with all sorts of spices. After I had it I knew why she didn't eat it by herself! So strong in taste and so much of it, it beamed me away... I had to spit it out after a while and didn't really feel well for a few minutes. bought some very nice sweets and some other things of which I don't remember the names or what it is. We packed it and took it with us to the airport where we enjoyed the food. There I also found out that my flight is delayed for two hours until midnight. Unfortunately had to leave at eight already so that she could get the Greyhound connection to Waterloo. We spent a great time together during these two days - but it was toooooo short.

Next flight, Austrian Airlines (on the left) to Vienna.

I figured that Albion should be at Toronto's airport at the same time since he has a stop over on his way from Vancouver to London (and then to Vienna). I couldn't find him at his departure gate, but he was waiting at my gate and we had a good time chatting there!

My Austrian Airlines flight was very comfortable since I had two seats for myself. The service was good, too and I was able to sleep relatively well. I even had my own display with a selection of movies, but what is this technology worth when they only show trash?