G'Day America
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G'Day America |
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Leaving at 9am in the morning we drove the 271 interstate heading for Niagara Falls. Butters and I swapped duties for filming and I got the still camera while he took the video camera, this I probably will later regret once I have seen what he filmed. We crossed the state lines of Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. The New York state line had a toll on it as expected but still it wasn't too expensive. All the way we had to get petrol (a.k.a. Gas) as it was expensive over in Canada (expensive it was 3 cents/Lt cheaper than ours back home. mind you working it out petrol in USA was around 30 c/lt so half our price) Anyway we stopped at this little town called Windfield which I couldn't find on the map but it's up state NY if you want to try and find it, here we bought gas, beef jerky and caramellos, the later was the tastiest by far. Upon reaching the border, since we were Australian we had to go thru customs slower than Emma as they had to stamp our visa waivers. But once in Canada we were back in Metric scale only still on the other side of the road. Niagara falls you can see a couple of miles away since it throws up the plume of water vapor into the sky. When there it actually rains on you. unfortunately we were there during the off season for tourist type activities so everything was shut for the winter. They were setting up the stage for the 2000 concert and count down. We drove rather smoothly on to Toronto where the fun began, particularly the disagreement of directions of how to get where we were staying between Emma and Myself, this is where I regret giving Andrew the camera. We get to our destination however and meet the people we are staying with. We were told where the ice skating was and quickly went straight there. Butters had never been ice skating, I had but it was over 14 years ago that I used to go and Emma said she had forgotten how (I doubted it by the end of the night) We were all shaky at first but Emma and I got the hang of it, I just put into practice roller blading skills as it was hockey skates I was wearing. Butters I don't know what he put in to practice but involved falling down a lot. We got very cold after 2 hours and headed for Maccas where you can get a super sized hot chocolate, mmmm yum. We returned back to the Ranchandarh's apartment where we got invited on a quick tour of Toronto and then taken to of all places an Ice Cream parlor. still the place was packed and it was really nice ice-cream.
Awoke to the news that Australia had no problems bringing the new year, although Sydney did try to blow it up! Melbourne also got a bit of coverage and we saw the event held on the Yarra. Today we went to an art exhibition of Al & Beck Halsen (Beck the music artist) who's art work was very creative and modern. We quickly moved to the CN Tower where every1 got a chance to lie down on the glass floor to see how high we were in the tallest man made structure in the world (Eat it Kula Lumpa twin towers, missed by 142m because an aerial doesn't count.) After checking out the heights of the world, we moved to a place called Playdium which is a 4 story arcade games area but all the games were the best you can get at the current time, including a baseball hitting game which I sucked at, give me the real thing any day. dinner was Subway, mmm roasted chicken sub!!! and followed by an light meal with a gathering of the friend's of Alshwin Ranchandrah. At 10:30pm Emma, Butter and I moved to the underground rail to catch a train down to the harbor front for the fireworks. It was totally packed and we got to the harbor front with 10mins to spare, considering the trip should of only took 30mins. The show was great and lasted 18 minutes and I got it all on tape, I just hope it all works out properly as I don't know how good or bad I am yet at recording. Got back to the apartment after walking with the crowd back thru the streets of Toronto, that was a rush in itself. Arrived and stayed chatting till 6am. Happy New Years!
1/1/2000!!!! Awoke late in the morning and slowly got motivated to go get some food, we went to this very nice Chinese restaurant around the corner called the Eating Garden. Very nice place and heaps of food without MSG. We got there at 2pm and didn't leave till 5pm where we decided to go see a movie. Alas I wanted Canadian money but after walking all over Toronto none of the machine would accept my Master Card, DOH! still we got to the movie theater and decided on watching Mag-nolia. It was a great movie and lasted 3 1/2 hours but had twists and coincidences all over the place. hence the end of our day as we were exhausted and were leaving early the next morning.
Said good bye to our lovely hosts and promised to write to the whilst on our trip, also extended an invite to come to Australia and visit us. Today was filled with the traveling although there was one section where we didn't move for ages and that was the American border check. We were stuck here for 2 1/2 hours but managed to keep ourselves entertained by playing Tag and scaring other drivers. Butter's walked back into the US across the Peace Bridge. Wish I had of thought to do that but it was very cold. the rest of the way home was filled with keeping Emma awake because every time she looked in the rear view mirror there was Butters asleep, lazy sod! Plus I'm not allowed to drive any of their cars over here, something to do with the fact that I'm not 25, DISCRIMINATION OF AGE!!!!!! Got home and joked with family about all the events that happened in Toronto whilst eating a Lamb Roast, very delicious, supposedly they tried to find Lamb Roulettes for me but they can't be found over here too easily. After dinner we watched a Clint Eastwood movie before bringing the day to a end.
