Friday 4th September 2009, 00:04
America, pt 2: Niagara Falls & Fingers Lakes
Much later than planned, here, for my own posterity, is what else happened on my American holiday...
- Niagara Falls. Alright, alright. My American and Canadian holiday. We weren't in Canada long, but long enough to see Niagara Falls. A mightily impressive spectacle, obviously, though ruined a bit by the incomprehensible need for visitors to wave neon at it. As if the garish casinos weren't enough, at night glowstick sellers appear and encourage people to detract from one of the biggest waterfalls in the world by waving multicoloured lights in the air. Thanks for that. Highlights though were dining 26 floors above the falls, and at that same seat getting a birds-eye view of a couple on the 26th floor of the hotel next door. They were being naughty.
- We then drove along Lake Ontario, through to Rochester in New York state. A charming place with a nice cosmopolitan area. Good meal out, which made a break from the fast food. We'd had a Wendy's burger as soon as we'd landed in Buffalo - even crossing the Canadian burger supping on an extra-large Coke and stuffing fries in our mouths. Just trying to fit in.
- After Rochester we drove down through the Finger Lakes, and thanks to the joys of Twitter, we even knew where to go. I posted a message that day saying we were going through there, and thanks to FLWineLady posting back, she told us of some great wineries. Several tastings later, we zigzagged our way to Olean, New York - a small town on the edge of the Allegheny Forest. The locals were baffled as to why and how we'd end up holidaying there. They were even more baffled as to how we'd spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on a house in the UK that was (new word to them) "semi-detached". "You share a wall with your neighbours? I couldn't live like that!" They had a four-bedroom detached house with a yard in Olean for $40,000. Yeach. Oh, and they wouldn't stop going on about Prince Blinking Charles. "Maybe we'll come stay in the UK one day. Hey! We could stay with Prince Charles! Do you see Prince Charles a lot hanging around where you are? And hey, no offence, but us Americans couldn't quite understand why he left Princess Diana for that Camilla woman. See, to us, Camilla isn't as good-looking as Diana." No shit, Sherlock. Do they think that to us Camilla is a beauty, with the most perfect teeth our country will allow?
To be concluded...