Friends and Relatives

When visiting friends and relatives six nights in a row, it's rather more difficult to keep the blog up to date than it is staying in hotels. One does not want to waste a precious minute of time sitting by oneself on a computer! We now have a four-night "R n R" period, so it's time for an update.

11 and 12 November 2014: Niagara Falls

After leaving our wonderful rellies in Seattle behind (sob, sob!) we flew to Toronto and drove down to Niagara Falls for the night, arriving after dark to a smaller version of Vegas. We had NO IDEA that the place would look like that. Although we’d never really thought about what it would look like, we certainly didn’t imagine the wonderfully tacky kitsch of Vegas. Some people, I imagine, would cringe, but haven’t worked in resort towns for so many years, I love that stuff. Especially at this time of the year when the Christmas lights are all on, and the mass of tourists is noticeably absent.

Arriving fairly late, we opted for the first Chinese takeaways we saw for dinner, and decided to apply our “one-meal-between-two” policy that we use in the USA. Turns out, the Canadian rule should be “one-meal-between-four”. Sheesh! After dinner, it was a drive through town to check out the fabulous gaudiness and vibrancy of it all, then off to bed for some much needed kip.

One Canadian meal is enough for four New Zealanders

Waking up early the next morning I headed into town (which is pretty much one street: Clifton Hill) to check out what was on offer and, to my utter delight as I walked down the Hill it started snowing! Not heavy, but light, and fluffy, and gorgeously captivating to a Kiwi from a warmer part of New Zealand. I, quite literally, walked from Canada to the USA in the snow.

Walking across Rainbow Bridge between Canada and the USA.

One foot and an arm in Canada on the way back.

The snow started falling a bit heavier on my way back, and Mum was up when I made it back to the hotel, so we packed up and head off for Journey Behind the Falls, marvelling again at the delights of the town. I can only imagine how packed the place must get in the peak summer season with families. Glad we visited when we did :) I'll post a few photos here: if you want to see more, then visit:

 Cliftton Hill Street of Fun

Clifton Hill Street of Fun

 

In the tunnels at Behind the Falls

The majesty of the Horseshoe Falls and the Niagara Falls Visitor Centre

The problem with visiting Canada and the USA in bite-size pieces to discover the places you want to go back to for longer is that you want to go back EVERYWHERE for longer, and Niagara Falls was certainly no exception. However, with a sigh at the lack of time, and appreciation of what we were able to see, we hit the road for St Thomas.

November 13 and 14: St Thomas, Ontario

In one of those "Why did we leave it so long?" moments, we had a joyful reunion with my cousins (Mum's nieces) Keren and Julie in St Thomas, and my Aunt Ruth. Keren and Julie's Dad Colin was my Dad's brother, and he and Ruth left New Zealand well over 40 years ago when the girls were ankle biters.

St Thomas is a lovely city just west of the sprawling metropolis of chaotic traffic that is Toronto, and we had the most amazing two nights and a day there with the family. I won’t post any family photos here as this blog is public access, but I will post them on my Facebook page and get Mum to share them on hers for her friends to see if they are interested. I think it's okay to post the "kids" however. What a wonderful collection of furry relatives to be surrounded with.

 

 

 

The furry friends who share the lives of our Canadian cousins

We had a fabulous big family dinner on Friday night, with the cousins, partners, Aunt, and kids (inlcuding a brief appearance from the male teenager). Again, pix on Facebook. Over the two days I also had a fabulous time making the acquaintance of a number of Canadian squirrles. Soooooo Cute. Oh, did you know, Canadians BBQ all year round, as witnessed by the photo below of Mum and I keeping Nick company while he BBQd in below freezing temperatures in light snow. These Canadians are crazy!

BBQ Canadian style. These Canadians are crazy! It was snowing!

House prices in St Thomas, compared to NZ, are crazy affordable. This one around the corner from Keren's went for $142,000, and interest is 3.2%!!!

Read it and weep Kiwis: $142,000 at 3.2% interest

Of course, there are always pay-offs. The average wage in Canada (and I don't mean "average" the mathematically correct method of chucking in a couple of billionaires with all the normal people so it looks like everyone earns good money. I mean what the average person earns … about $14-15 across the board. And only two weeks holiday a year. TWO WEEKS! No wonder so many cruises are 10 days … a day to get ready, a day to travel, a 10 night cruise, a day to get home, a day to unpack, and back to work. Kiwis don’t know how good we have it with our four weeks.

November 15 and 16: Peterborough, Ontario

Leaving the relatives after so long was hard, but tempered (for me at least) by the fact that we were on our way to visit the editor of my novels, Holly Bennett. Who would have thought that when Amanda, the teenage librarian at Tauranga Library, handed me a copy of The Bone Bender about four years ago sayiing "You'll love this" that it would lead to Holly becoming my editor, and culminate in a two night stay with her and her lovely husband John? Holly and I have become close Facebook friends ove the years, and it was wonderful to finally meet in person. Peterborough is about an hour and half's drive (on a good day: see next section) east of Toronto, so we did St Thomas to Peterborough in a little over three hours. If you have to drive through Toronto, do it on a Sunday.

Holly and John had planned to take us to see a wonderful band on Saturday night who I had checked out on the internet, but by the time we had dinner and a chat, Mum and I were simply too shattered to go out. Next time! Once again we were treated to a light dusting of snow on the 15th, followed by a heavier overnight dump. Holly and John took us for a drive around their town and surrounding area on Saturday, and on Sunday we were treated to a visit to the Whetung Ojibwa Center,
a spectacular collection of Indian crafts as well as fine art, sculpture, masks, leather work, clothing, jewelry, music, and books from across Canada. I'll post a page about this on the Little Peppe website later on, but in the meantime ...

 Shirley at the Whetung Ojibwa Centre

Oh the things we could have bought it we had a) money and b) more room in the luggage. We did buy a few little items, but could so easily have gone nuts if it had been possible.

After this, Holly and John had another special treat arranged for us ... tickets to the local community production of Les Miserables by the St James Players. To be honest, I hadn't expected huge things from a community theatre, but oh my gosh darn, it was absolutely fantastic, as evidenced by the spectacular and instantaneous standing ovation from a matinee audience.

After our fourth fabulous Canadian home-cooked dinner in as many nights,we played Scrabble with the Canadians ... the Kiwis won! That is to say, Mum won the game, and I beat my editor - bwa ha ha. Lucky break on my part. After the end of a wonderful visit it was off for a short kip for an early making wake up call for what turned out to be The Day Of Hell Travel. So bad, it will get a blog entry of its own. After squirrels. And snow.

Loving the funky Canadian scrabble board