It's official – we love New York! We wish we had a bit more time here to keep exploring this great city.
On Wednesday we caught an early flight to Niagara Falls. I slept through the whole flight (again – I'm getting very good at this) and arrived in Buffalo ready to start our next adventure.
We hired a car to get to the Canadian side of the falls. Turls was the first to brave driving on the wrong side of the road. I completed the return trip. We laughed so much....it's amazing how much you have to concentrate. We kept veering across to the right – it's difficult to judge where the side of the road is when you are sitting on the left. I know we do the same all the time at home only vice-versa, but it was so weird. We had an ugly little white ford focus, with a sat nav. Without this, I think we would probably still be looking for the falls. The lady on it was driving me nuts, we did a lot of blockies and she was “re-calculating” a lot, but it was all part of the fun.
The horseshoe falls were amazing. We were surprised though that you can't see the entire falls simply because of all the mist that is coming off the water. It is constantly raining close to the falls because of the it. It was also a bit windy which probably made it worse. We did a journey behind the falls, which allowed a couple of little viewing portholes behind the falls - it was loud and strong but the photos don't show this. The platform that you can walk out on was good. You are so close to the falls it is amazing We got drowned and were only out there for 30 seconds or so. The new camera also copped a soaking and the lens wouldn't close for a while but it is all good now.
The American falls are on the other side of the river are also pretty good, but nothing compared to the horseshoe falls. We wandered around the falls area for a few hours, then drove into the countryside to a little town called Niagara on the Lake, which is about 20 minutes drive from the falls (although the stupid nav lady made us take a bit longer that that on the way there!). This is an historic town, with lots of lovely gift shops, restaurants and many other touristy things. There were heaps of people there as it is a beautiful and clean little town. Even the residential streets are neat and green and the houses just gorgeous. We spent the rest of the afternoon there before returning to the airport. Going through customs in the car was an experience. The guys seemed so rude – not sure what the attitude was all about? Our flight back to NY was delayed so we didn't get in until quite late.
Yesterday we went down to Pier 17 to line up for some tickets, in the rain, for a show. It poured rain all day and we had the purchase a second umbrella, but still got soaked. We ended up getting tickets to see Chicago that night which was fantastic. We spent the rest of the day wandering around Century 21 and Macy's which are both department stores in NY. Century 21 was a lot smaller and very busy, as it has a lot of designer stuff at unbelievably cheap prices. Macy's was enormous, nine massive floors of shopping! I can't believe how cheap things are here compared to at home. I wish that this had been our last stop so that I could have brought a lot more stuff home with us.
Today we were pretty slack; lazed around for a little while and grabbed some brekky before heading to the airport for our flight to London. We went back to Harlem, and although much rougher that the other areas of NY that we have experienced, it was no way as scary as when we arrived.
Next stop London (for one night), then heading to Edinburgh by train to start our Haggis Tour around Scotland.
Say hi to everyone for us, take care.
Ange & Turls xxx
PS Happy Birthday Chris & Loz
