22/09/05: In which we see an awful lot of water and buy a hat
Saturday, 17 December, 2005
For some reason, I slept very badly and it took us ages to get ready. But nevertheless we hit the road to Niagara (*insert obligatory Guys and Dolls reference*) and got a glimpse of the steelworks and the escarpment around Hamilton as we drove through.
I noticed that there was a Remembrance Day poppy in Jose's car (scroll down a bit in this article for pictures of them). They sell them everywhere like Starlight Foundation key rings—especially in November. For some reason I have very vivid memories of touching one of them when I was a kid and I'm not usually a tactile person.
I noticed that the centres were now black instead of green and Jose said that was because someone complained and said that in real life poppies had black centres so they ought to be black.
Niagara was about an hour's drive away. In the car, Ben shot footage of the road, the traffic, the rainbow-coloured school bus and Jose speaking in her Canadian accent. Jose let us play the CDs that Ben had bought the day before on her car stereo (Helicopter Helicopter and Wild Dogs with X-Ray Eyes). The countryside all around us was so beautiful—all these great wide open spaces to run around in. I wondered if everything was big and grand because of the American influence or whether it was just the land that does it to you.
Eventually we reached the city of Niagara, honeymoon capital of the world. The last time I was there, I think I was about 15 so I suppose I should have expected that it had changed a great deal, with hotels and skyscrapers all over the place. I certainly didn't expect to see all sorts of touristy things like Ripley's Believe it or Not or an iMax.
We drove along the parkway and tried to find a spot but of course the place was chockers (i.e. full, for non-Australians who don't know what “chockers” means) so we eventually parked in a parking bay which cost $12. It was a short walk down to the falls—the Horseshoe Falls—which made Webster's Falls look like a little trickle:
I don't think I've ever seen so much water in my life and apparently a sizable portion of it gets diverted to the local hydroelectricity plant. It was a cloudy day and there was lots of mist so it was very bright everywhere. Down below we could see the Maid of the Mist:
“Do you want to go on that?” asked Josephine.
“Not really,” we said. We didn't really want to go behind the falls either or do those other touristy things. We just looked and looked at the falls.
After getting our full of gazing, we went into the Table Rock gift shop where Ben got his wish to see a moose:
I tried to find a canned moose for him (what a silly gimmick but so cute; my mum once bought my brother a canned beaver—it's just a little stuffed toy in a soup can) but there were none. I bought some Moose Droppings (chocolate covered almonds) for Tim and Ros (Ros is a chocaholic) and some real Canadian maple syrup for the Beilharzs (which they tell me they absolutely adore and they can never go back to the horrible supermarket stuff again. I wholeheartedly agree; Australian maple syrup just doesn't cut it and nothing else will do on your pancakes). Ben got some postcards because the Priors made us promise we'd send them one and the Beilharzs also like postcards. We also bought some drinks. The cashier asked where I was from. I told her and asked if she had had many Australians come visit recently and she said they had had a few.
We had a picnic lunch on the grass of the nearby park (egg and cheese sandwiches with Jose's home-made bread, plus salad, peanut butter and jam sandwiches, banana chips and Chips Ahoy! which, confusingly, are not potato chips but chocolate chip cookies. Ben filmed them and commented on the French translation of Chips Ahoy! (everything in Canada is bilingual). To quote How to be a Canadian,
Canadians speak French and English, often at the same time. Trayz sophisticated, n'est pah? Known far and wide as master linguists, Canadians excel in particular at translating cereal boxes. Often, when the U.N. needs a cereal box translated, they call in the Canadians, who parachute out of stealth bombers clutching boxes of Capitaine Crounche and K de Special. In a situation unique among the world's nations, English Candians know what the French is for “riboflavin,” “niacin” and “part of a complete breakfast.” And vice versa. English Canadians don't know what riboflavin is (no one does), but they do sort of know what it looks like in French. And vice versa.
(Will and Ian Ferguson, How to be a Canadian, Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver, p. 12)
Ben shot more footage of him and Jose pronouncing various words in his Australian accent and her Canadian accent respectively while yellow-eyed yellow-footed seagulls hovered around wanting food.
We debated whether or not to go visit the Daredevil gallery in the iMax (which was free and featured an exhibition of things which people have used to go over the falls—including the famous barrel) but we decided not to and went instead to Niagara-on-the-Lake.
The drive there involved going past the hydroelectricity plant and lots of expensive-looking very pretty houses with wide verandahs and architecture sort of reminiscent of the Edwardian period but still very much American colonial. The leaves were just starting to turn brown and gold, even though it was still extremely hot, the tail-end of summer.
I'd never been to Niagara-on-the-Lake before. It's a little town east of Niagara Falls that's a bit like Berry but much much classier—full of quaint little houses (which Jose said were extremely expensive) and cute little shops. Niagara-on-the-Lake is also famous for the Shaw Festival which celebrates the work of George Bernard Shaw and the plays written around his period (not that he had anything to do with the area; they just started performing his plays around there).
Ben, who hadn't been sleeping very well, wasn't particularly interested in shopping so we left him to have a snooze in the park with the sleeping bag from Jose's trunk which we had been using as a picnic blanket (I wonder if that is a Canadian thing; my parents used to do that too but no one does that in Australia—they all buy proper picnic blankets). Jose and I walked around, with me snapping photos of everything (here's an example of the local architecture):
(The house was actually an art gallery, not someone's home.) We poked around in all these little expensive shops which sold mostly clothes, souvenirs, knickknacks, lollies and gifts. There was even a Christmas shop with Christmas lights of Spongebob Squarepants:
—and Christmas decorations of 'smores:
There was even a hat shop called Beauchapeau (which is French for something like “good hat”) where I fell in love with a whole bunch of felt hats and contemplated building up a hat collection (how fabulous is Reese Witherspoon's hat in Legally Blonde 2!). It was here I bought myself the perfect bell-shaped black cloche hat and they even gave me a nice box to put it in (which got crushed on the way home but no matter).
We also found this amazing shop which had felt bags and these incredible cards which lift out into giant paper sculptures. Out the front there were these glass balls:
and a stained glass tree:
(or maybe you call that leadlighting). Anyway.
Jose had never had Dippin' Dots before so I treated her to some. She pointed out the penny cup near the cashier; apparently, when paying at the counter, Canadians put the pennies from the change into penny cups so that people after them can use them if they're a penny or two short.
We were on the other side of the main street, coming back through the crowds of Shaw Festival patrons who were millling outside the theatre during intermission when it started to rain. So we headed back to wake up a groggy Ben who hadn't slept very well, and we all hopped in the car and went back to Hamilton while it bucketed down.
Back at the house, Phil was there with his brother William who was really miffed because there was something wrong with the wheels on the boat which meant they couldn't go duck-hunting. He didn't stay for very long but said his farewells and nice-to-meet-yous. I was running out of space on my digital camera and Phil very kindly burnt a CD of them for me to free up memory since I left my laptop at home.
Everyone was really tired and we decided to eat out. We chose Indian which Jose was a bit reluctant about since she hadn't had Indian since she went to her friend's wedding in India earlier that year (or was it the year before?) So we drove out to Hamilton listening to John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Double Fantasy. We saw large queues of cars lining up to get petrol because Hurricane Rita was predicted to hit the following day and they were scared of petrol prices going up. Phil was a bit cynical about the whole thing and predicted that petrol prices would probably go down.
The Indian restaurant was called something like Kaspuri and it was close to where Phil used to flat when he was at Uni. We ordered butter chicken, rogan josh, entree things and naans. It was very yummy! Phil and Jose graciously treated us.
On the way back the petrol pumps seemed to be less crowded so Phil filled up. At the house we had tea and I started cleaning up and packing and working things out for tomorrow for how we were going to get to Midland. Phil was going up to Owen Sound and he thought it was easy if he just took us there, even though it was out of his way. The plan changed three times but eventually we had it all worked out: Phil would drive us there; and I called Auntie Lois (who is not my aunt) to let her know what was happening.
I completed the packing and then finished knitting the scarf that I was making as a thank you present for Phil (knitted out of 100% New Zealand wool; Jose's had already been completed before I left the country). And then I tried to go to sleep because we were getting up at 8 am.
Current:
Bible: Isaiah (ESV) 28/09/2010
seen: Tropic Thunder 26/09/2010
seen: The Life of Mammals 24/09/2010
seen: What a Girl Wants 19/09/2010
seen: Jerry Maguire 19/09/2010
seen: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 06/09/2010
seen: Tomorrow Never Dies 05/09/2010
seen: Nanny McPhee 28/08/2010
read: Mercury (Hope Larson) 27/08/2010
read: Spellcheckers Vol 1 (Jamie S Rich, Nicolas Hitori de, Joelle Jones) 16/08/2010
read: Solipsistic Pop Vol 2 (Solipsistic Pop) 16/08/2010
read: Chiggers (Hope Larson) 15/08/2010
seen: Josie and the Pussycats 14/08/2010
seen: Mr & Mrs Smith 14/08/2010
seen: Step Up 2 13/08/2010
Blinks:
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
Online magazine that publishes fairy tales that are not reworkings of old tales.
Journal that publishes fairy tale writing.
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I’m glad the power of the authentic maple syrup is spreading - my grandma occasionally brings back a bottle when she goes home to Canada, and the supermarket imitation stuff pales by comparison.