O Canada

Turns out our family vacations to Canada were all before I started blogging, so I get to use this post title. I really thought I’d used it before, but I guess not. After graduation, I did not get to go home and collapse on my un-air-conditioned living room floor for the remainder of the summer. Yet. That is what I mostly did when I finally made it back to New England, but before that we made stops at Niagara Falls and Toronto. I had relatives visiting for my graduation and after driving all the way up to Ithaca, we thought we might as well make the side trip.

We first stopped on the American side of the falls and walked around Goat Island for a few hours before crossing over into Canada. Following dinner, we went to see the falls from the Canadian side, enjoyed the lights and fireworks, then returned to the hotel. The next day, we walked more on the Canadian side and did the Journey to the Falls (the equivalent of Maid of the Mist on the American side). I also got pancakes for breakfast, a donut at lunch, and samosas at dinner, so it was a good food day. The last time we were at Niagara we did the Cave of the Winds, where you get to walk around near the bottom of the falls. The cheapest way to see the falls is to just walk around Goat Island/on the Canadian side, but if you really want to see the falls up close and personal and/or spend some money, Cave of the Winds and either boat ride are all recommendable. You get to do Cave of the Winds on your own time, but it is undeniably kind of cool to go right up to Horseshoe Falls.

American Falls at night

The next day was spent half in transit. Upon arrival in Toronto, we proceeded to spend the afternoon at a Chinese shopping mall. My travelling companions all enjoyed the food. I did enjoy the mini-eggs as well as watching American Ninja Warrior at the hotel that night. The following day, we went into Toronto and walked to Chinatown in search of dim sum. Spoiler alert: we found it. It wasn’t bad, and as an added bonus, I think it was pretty cheap.

In the afternoon, we navigated our way to Casa Loma (literally, Hill House) on the subway. An aside about the subway: I’ve ridden on the subway systems of DC, New York City, and Boston, and despite the crowds in NYC, my inability to make the turnstile read my MetroCard (also NYC), and never remembering how much money I have on my Charlie Card (Boston), Toronto has the dubious honor of having my least favorite subway. Buying fare was, for whatever reason, unnecessarily complicated, and we encountered some of the ruder staff and passengers I’ve seen on public transportation. As for Casa Loma, the rooms are very well done, and there’s an informative self-guided audio tour available. The only thing I would recommend is going in the morning or early afternoon so you can take your time. If you’re there at closing, the staff is extremely eager to get everyone out. As in, follow you and escort you to the door eager.

Casa Loma

From Casa Loma, we returned to downtown Toronto where the CN Tower is located. I normally do not buy tickets to the top of tall buildings to see other tall buildings (previous exception: the Empire State Building because when we went to NYC, we bought the CityPASS to spend a week doing all the tourist things) but this time we decided to have dinner at the 360 restaurant. Because we needed dinner, my relatives really wanted us all to go up, $65 for an elevator ride + dinner is better than a $35 elevator ride, and how often do you get to eat a fancy dinner in a rotating restaurant at the top of the CN Tower?

Dessert, from left to right: white chocolate mousse, dark chocolate tart,
and meringue with a milk chocolate and peanut topping

I had chicken, because I always get the chicken, and dessert. The chicken was good and dessert was delicious. We watched the sun set from the restaurant, then went to the observation deck. The view was nice, but not worth $35 (sorry, CN Tower) unless you really, really like going to the top of tall buildings.

Night falling on Toronto, as seen from the CN Tower

After the CN Tower, we returned to the hotel and the following day, we made our way back to Syracuse. From there, we had one last stop in Ithaca to collect my belongings from my apartment and then we were homeward bound.