"Aren't Canadians friendly, eh?"

The minute we crossed the border we noticed something odd happening...people were becoming strangely cheerful, friendly and relaxed. We must be in Canada! Our border crossing experience, involving the most upbeat customs officials I have ever encountered, was a slight contrast to my US customs experience, which involved a hostile-looking woman impatiently barking "Fingers on the pad! Thumb! I said thumb!" at me while I dithered confusedly.

First stop in Canada? It HAD to be Niagara Falls! We took a stroll along the boardwalk, snacking on kosher hot dogs (tastes just like the normal kind.....) and trying to figure out why our hair kept going static, sticking straight up in their air every so often for no apparent reason. Of course, we then took a Maid of the Mist boat ride into the Falls, which was spectacular. One of our group had been given a tip-off that the lower deck was better than the upper deck as it gave you a more dramatic perspective of the size of the falls: most tourists headed straight for the top and ended up packed in like sardines, so down below we luxuriated in our freedom to stroll around and see the falls from different parts of the boat. The bottom deck was much, much dryer, too!

Kosher hotdog!

After heading to Toronto, we set up camp at the Indian Line campsite, my team cooked pasta for the rest of the group and we settled in for a night of s'mores (our guide Kyle taught us the "proper" way to make them), and beer/wine/other. On a trip to the washrooms, we encountered an old man with a guitar who, on discovering that we were English, serenaded us with his special rendition of the Spice Girls.

We got a little worried later on when two members of campsite staff, Phil and Caroline, approached us...we thought we were making too much noise. Turned out, their truck had broken down and they needed our help to push it to the main road. We invited them to join us and they promised to return once their truck had been rescued. True to their word, they returned a couple of hours later in time to teach us the game '21'. Aren't Canadians nice, eh?

written by

lucy3119 on July 30, 2012 from Niagara Falls, Canada

from the travel blog: Canada and a little USA 2012

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