Niagara Falls

Early morning bus journey from Toronto to Niagara Falls. A Japanese man sits next to me, stiff as a board, doesn’t lean for a minute in 1 1/2 hours. The autistic woman in front of me makes up for it. She leans once every second. Down at the station, transfer bus to Rainbow Bridge. I’m the only one far and wide to cross the bridge on foot and with luggage. The US Custom Officers are funny as always.

The youth hostel is in a very nice neighbourhood. Colonial style and southern houses from the beginning of the last century. Only one in three is inhabited, the rest are dilapidated. It has charm. The hostel doesn’t officially open until four, so I go on a tour straight away. 2 kilometres to Niagara Falls.
Huge casinos and motel complexes. Then parks and attractions such as helicopter flights, arcades and tethered balloons. I save them all and walk along the shore above the falls. Oh, Mr Dirschedl, would you like the rapids…you just can’t drift off :-)

Continue to the islands above the falls. Again and again, off the beaten track, small views of the rapids and the edge of the falls. Via Green Island to Goat Island. In the middle between the two falls it’s raining heavily, while down below a few plastic dwarves are having fun in the spray. I continue to the Horseshoe Falls, the border to Canada. Then once round Goat Island. On the far side, 200 metres above the falls, I find a small bay with little current and hidden access through the bushes and take a cool half-bath.

The Three Sisters Islands take you a long way out into the rapids. There are also hidden paths right up to the edge of the white water. Swimming is forbidden under threat of imprisonment. I certainly wouldn’t do that here either, as it wasn’t mentioned below :-)

I go back to the hostel, pretty much all of them. I want to sleep. But the ten-bed room puts a spanner in the works. So I get out at 8am and head to the nearest pub with 3 Australians, a Dutchman and a New Zealander. The beer here costs just $2.50, and the cigarettes only $5 instead of $8 as in New York. We chat about worlds and plans. Then we set off.

We want to go to the Canadian side. The falls are illuminated from there at night. Rainbow colours like the flags in Toronto. For once it is unexpected: the American side is a quiet and tranquil village with a large casino. The Canadian side, on the other hand, is a Las Vegas Disney World explosion. One casino next to the other. Flashing lights. Beer gardens. Hustle and bustle. Squealing tuning car tyres. Beer gardens with karaoke. The drunken Americans should be banned from singing even in the dark and sober. Here they bawl. Can’t get enuff.

The last beer in the sports bar costs a measly 8 dollars. But the music is incredibly loud. Drunken kids everywhere and the menu on the table is floating in a lake of beer. On the TV above the bar, an extreme fighter punches another until his hair falls out. The bowling alleys are full, as are the 100 or so vending machines. At one of them, a fat, ugly chick is spastically jumping up and down to some dance game. It’s very reminiscent of the scene with Scully and Homer Simpson on the treadmill. Pity would be to give her a dollar and say: Please go play pinball!

It’s incredible what people consider entertainment here, in such a grandiose place. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry for a long time and then decide in favour of the funnier option. We head home around two o’clock, the bridge to the USA is swaying.

The next morning we head back to Niagara Falls. By boat right into the spray. I don’t need a mackintosh, the shower is great. Then I dry off 30 metres behind the edge at the upper park. Look into the gorge, listen to the thunder. Work on a homepage. Squirrels eat peanuts out of my hand. And I wonder what colour I should paint my office walls…

Back at the hostel in the evening. Wifi has broken down. Have to walk another 3km to connect to the WWW. I get my accommodation in Chicago sorted and walk home past a big Harley meeting. Good band, a space of 200 by 100 metres is only occupied by the bright sun and nothing else.

In the evening we set off again with a new Australian in the direction of Viagra Falls and GagaTown. Fireworks over the falls, especially for us. Then into the night “life”. The karaoke beer garden. In front of it sits a fat, pink-haired badass in her Lexus. Too fat to pop in for a beer. Sits there for hours and stares. At some point, the Japanese give us half a pizza from the cubic metre class. Should say enough about the quality of the singsong.

A drunken Fred Durst offshoot Creed sings “With arms wide open”. Between the text monitors above the stage, golf is playing on one in the centre. Tiger Woods hits a hole in none with his arms close together. The beer costs $7.50. And the worse the singing, the more people drink. A gifted voice saves my planned onward journey to Chicago in five hours with “Black Velvet”. I hope so. Good night.