Niagara Falls, A Voyageur's Perspective

About a month ago, some of my lovely Welsh friends came to Canada to see the sights, visit with me, and cheer on some roller derby and we made a little Swansea sojourn to one of my favourite places, Niagara Falls.  We boarded our Greyhound bus with a group of Amish people, all of whom were wearing the traditional garb of shirts and suspenders and hats and beards and bonnets and long skirts, and I won't deny that many of them had that fresh-faced, country air look about them which I sort of envied, being a city dweller now and all.  This especially benefitted "The Fit One", as my friend and I lustily referred to one with a particularly thick beard and sparkly eyes.  This was our first cultural lesson of the day though, because we did not know that Amish people took coach buses...or went on tourist trips to The Falls...or drank Canada Dry ginger ale and listened to iPods.  But apparently, they do!  Strike one against our ignorant notions.
When we arrived at the Niagara Falls coach station, we discovered some unexpected things there too:  It was apparently frozen in time back in 1982 and has no plans to thaw for the 21st century.  We were particularly taken with the old Coke sign above the snack bar and the surly man behind the information desk.  We were less taken with the toilet facilities.

Soon we hopped on a city bus to take us to The Falls themselves!  This was the most horrific bus ride of our entire collective lives.  I hate to kick a place when it is already, very obviously down, but the town of Niagara Falls is BLEAK.  Our bus included no less than three bonafide crazy people, plus an amazing assortment of odours, both human and unidentified, as well as views of a crumbling town of 40-year-old Chinese buffets, tacky, run-down motels, and houses with peeling paint just barely holding them together.  It was enough to break the heart, but also boggle the mind... surely a place with so many tourists would have more money than this?  But I digress - when we hopped off the bus, to my delight we had reached Clifton Hill, the most wonderful, disgustingly tacky assortment of haunted houses, celebrity wax museums, and fast food outlets in the world.  Of course, it being the beginning of December, this was a veritable ghost town with half of the establishments shut for the season, which made it all both more terrifying and more amazing to see. 

When we finally reached the gorge, my dear pals were a bit in shock!  Having visited Niagara Falls countless times, I sort of knew what to expect (although, I think in the past I've always arrived in a car via Niagara-on-the-Lake, so I was a little surprised myself...) however, my friends had apparently always pictured The Falls within some sort of remote forest that one had to hike through, only to be surprised by the majestic waterfall in all its natural glory - therefore, finding the wilderness we passed through was actually a devastatingly tacky display of wax figures and ads for casinos, I fear they felt a bit let down.  Not unlike our tech savvy Amish friends, Niagara Falls did not prove to maintain the purity of our expectations. 

Still though, The Falls never cease to amaze me, and we saw not one, but three rainbows!  Plus, the sun came out just in time for us, even if it was bloody freezing.  So, we marvelled at the sublime view, bought some tacky magnets, ate some crap at Wendy's and took the bus home! 

And that is the story of Niagara Falls, children.  THE END