Our first day in Toronto was booked to be a little roadtrip to Niagara Falls with some of Jim’s friends from India.
They moved to Toronto in the summer last year and he’d promised we’d go and see them when we were over. I’d only met Sachin once, very briefly, when he came to the UK for work and I’d never met Rupneet, but they are the loveliest couple. I can see why Jim misses their presence in India on his visits. It was really interesting to hear about their move from India to Canada, and the changes in their lives since the move.
And it was so fun to see them all reminiscing about their time in India.
Despite having flown during some pretty horrible freezing rain, we were blessed with bright blue skies for our visit, and as it was a Friday, very few crowds, which Rupneet told us would be crazy at the weekend, even in winter!
The rocks around the base of the American Falls & Bridal Veil Falls were apparently far more prominent that they are normally due to the ice and snow, which I thought was pretty beautiful. And the patterns the ice on the river made as the water rushed underneath it was really mesmerizing.
We stayed on the Canadian side of the falls as Jim didn’t have his passport with him, and with our hosts having only moved to Canada recently, the Americans are a bit funny about them popping over the border! But we had a good explore of the bit of the falls we could see. Unfortunately, as it was winter, and -5, the Maid of the Mist tours and the walks behind the falls weren’t running so we had to stay and look at it from above!
Looking at the falls from the front was beautiful, looking at it from the side was somewhat more impressive. As you stood there with the sound of the water crashing past, you saw the vast amount of water that rushes over the falls, even in winter!
I have to say, maybe it was being there in the winter and the falls don’t run as fast, or because we couldn’t go on the boats to the bottom of the falls, or behind the falls, or maybe it was because I hadn’t realised it was so commercial and so near to civilisation, but I was a bit underwhelmed by Niagara.
Don’t get me wrong – it was a beautiful sight, but in my head I expected something different. Something wilder. I didn’t expect to turn round and see a Hard Rock Café and a few casinos. Does that make sense?