Oh Canada! Sunday: I Go over Niagara Falls

Sunday the weather was on our side and my mom, Auntie Jeanette and I were able to take a helicopter tour over Niagara Falls. So technically speaking, I went over Niagara falls – sans barrel.

The view from outside



The view from within



This is my favorite place by the falls. I don't want to see the gorgeous view from across the water. I like to stand right at the edge, a breath away from going over.



I love the "world's biggest" anything!



This building looked like a bucket of KFC (Whatever it is I think I see, becomes a KFC to me!)



We looked around a bit, and everyone was patient while I snapped some pics of the local Buddhist monastery.









We hitched a ride back to Newmarket with my cousin and his wife. When the subject of lunch came up, there were vague murmurs of Tim Horton’s emanating from the back seat. What is up with Tim Horton’s? Are they putting crack in it? But no one wanted to be the one to make a fuss. I sensed a sudden power vacuum, and nature abhors a vacuum. I pulled out my list of restaurants and seized the reins. California sandwiches, a new place I had heard good things about, was conveniently on the way.

As we sat at a stoplight I noticed a Tim Horton’s. Curses! I tried to decide whether or not to fake a seizure. The resulting uprising was easily quelled without the need for diversionary tactics.

It turned out California sandwiches was closed Sundays, but it is so popular we weren’t the only ones standing in the parking lot. Another thwarted customer recommended Franesco's Foods just down the street on Clayhill, which turned out to be a real find.

Francesco's veal and chicken cutlets were crispy and delicious, topped with melted cheese and marinara sauce.



The steak sandwich was mind-blowing. The meat was so tender. I was so focused on the veal cutlet when I ordered I didn't even notice they had panzarotti. My loss.



I asked Rae, at the counter, what cut of beef they used for the steak sandwich. He came back with, "What? You want me to give you the recipe for the red sauce too?" I love a challenge. We bantered back and forth for a little while and finally he showed me where the cut was on his own body (Sorry, I'm sworn to secrecy). I looked up and realized everyone else was sitting in the car, purses in laps, staring straight ahead. Wait! We can't leave yet! I'm over here falling in love! And what is the secret to the red sauce?

Back in Newmarket, I found a coffeshop with wireless so I could start uploading photos. On the way home, I asked the taxi cab to take me somewhere good to pick up something to eat. He took me here. It was in a strip mall with an adult bookstore.



Proximity to New York definitely paid off.

Oh Canada! Saturday: In Which Musical Theater Nearly Does Me In

Saturday my mom and I went to Niagara Helicopters Limited, but the copters were grounded due to inclement weather.



On the way back, we passed by the Evel Knievel Daredevil Museum. My cousin said, “I suppose you want to stop there.” Are you kidding me? It was also a thrift store – score! 15 dollars poorer, one funny sign and crazy hat later, we were back on the road.

I don't know what any of this has to do with Evel Knievel. But it was behind a velvet rope.



The camel toe wouldn't fit in my luggage



We passed a cool motel that looked EXACTLY like the motel from Psycho. If I hadn't seen the real Psycho set, I'd swear that's where they filmed it. So when we counted heads and came up one bed short, I volunteered to stay at the Bates Motel. I wanted to take pictures inside the room. No one would let me stay there, something about drugs and hookers. So they found me a room at the Old Stone Inn.





That night we had tickets to “Oh Canada, Eh!” It was an unfortunate pick - probably my worst case of bad judgement this trip. I had heard the food was actually good, and it looked like it was going to be kitschy in a cool, drag-queen kind of way.

Instead it was a theme restaurant, like Medieval Times. Imagine Bear Country Jamboree meets Waiting for Guffman. Along with cheesy acting and the anticipated stereotypes (they even had a "newfie"), the hypercheerful music was unrelenting. The French Canadian accents were just painful. How in the hell did they manage that? You can't throw a rock in Ontario without hitting someone with a real French Canadian accent.



For dinner there was a watery pea soup and mediocre salad that they comically cleared while I was still eating it. I just poked at everything else - a platter of mixed Canadian food – fried fish that wasn’t so bad, chicken, some of the worst beef ever, and I forget what else. Maybe I will recover the memory in therapy. You may wonder where the food photos are - well, I had a broken lens that wouldn't focus on anything within 3 feet of me - be grateful.

At the end of the meal, they offered “Squirrel cake” Squirrel cake? Really? Although I'm sure my ancestors probably did eat squirrel, I must have heard them wrong. It was swirl cake. Chocolate and maple. Yeah, maple. The most intense, awful, maple badness ever. We all tried to be subtle as we spit it out. I wish it was squirrel cake.

It was kind of a relief when they cleared the dessert dishes, since it meant that the show was almost over. Not so fast, Missy. It went on and on and on. I went outside and started making phone calls during the Gordon Lightfoot tribute.

Keeping with the Psycho theme, there was some appetizing taxidermy on the walls.



The room at the Old Stone Inn was beautiful. Definitely a nice place to stay in Niagara Falls. It was right near a party row. Hunger and lots of people yelling wooohoooh drew me out of my room. Especially since my plan to get drugs and hookers at the Bates Motel had been thwarted.

Hello? Halal Indian Food and Evil Psycho Clown. May I help you?



I happened upon this place. It was too good to be true. An Indian buffet open til midnight? Score. As I stood there considering my choices, one of the waiters approached me, “You are so beautiful. I will make you anything you want – special.” Amongst my many superpowers, I seem to have the strange ability to mesmerize East Indian men. Friends who have witnessed this power in action attribute it to my red hair. Others think it has something to do with my breasts.

"How about a garlic naan?"
“Anything for you!”
“OK, then, TWO garlic naan!”





When you are a lone traveler, the desk clerk is your best friend. The clerk at the Inn was so sweet, when he saw my take-out bag he took my food in the back and put it on covered plates with real silver as if I had ordered it from room service. So I curled up for the night with a 10.99 movie and my riches of naan. Swank.

Ontario does love its phallic symbols

Oh Canada! Friday Night: April Wine and May Poutine

At the Springilicious Festival in Niagara Falls, Ontario, we met up with my cousin's work friends and started drinking. One friend introduced himself to me by saying, “Hi. I’m John. I play bass.” (Did I mention that I play guitar?”)

I had to come back with, “Did you hear about the drummer who locked himself in the van?”

“No”

“It took the bass player an hour to get him out.”

“Why?”

One drawback to my dawdling in Buffalo was that by the time it occurred to me to check out the food most of the booths were closing up. The Haitian booth was still open. The lady at the booth was shy about my camera, but I flattered her and then showed her the picture and offered to erase it of she didn’t like it. She blushed charmingly and waved me away.



I thought I ordered a curried chicken, but ended up with some kind of fritter and fried plantains.



After a short break to eat the mystery fritter, I stood up and picked up my bag, and the camera just flew out, end over end, smashing into the concrete. It didn't happen in slow motion, as dramatic as that would have been. Luckily, I was hanging out with techie-minded engineers who physically forced the lens back in. I now was forced to shoot in Manual mode for the first time ever.

As a result, the rest of the pictures in this series are going to be compromised as I am forced to learn Manual mode. The photos are all wacky as I am often unaware that the setting is off and cannot make the broken lens focus on anything less than 3 feet away. Later, back in LA when I had to cough up for a new lens, they sold me a lens filter to try and counteract my cavalier attitude towards my gear. The woman added, "The cover has UV protection too, so that's good."

I asked, "So I don't get cancer in that one eye?"

She just stared at me, like, "How do you even walk around without hurting yourself?"

Sad as I was about the camera, ice cream makes everything better. The gelato booth even had nougat, an uncommon flavor and definitely better than chocolate.



When I had heard that April Wine was playing, the name sounded so familiar, but I didn’t know any of their songs offhand. I had thought it would be like Jethro Tull or Lord Sutch. It turned out to be more of a hair band, like bands that pronounce "higher" as "Hiyaaahhh" . I asked one of the guys when I should expect the power ballad.

“Probably any time now."

"How many times do they say the word 'lady'?"

“This isn’t Styx.'

"I know. But it’s the third law of the power ballad that it must include the word 'lady'"



So I was really gratified to hear this song. So gratified I had to go find that guy and point at the stage and raise my eyebrows at him. Because I am such a lady. Or could have been.

Could have been alright, could have been here tonight
Could have been sweet as wine, you could have been a lady
I could have been alright, I could have been here tonight
Could have been sweet as wine, you could have been a lady

It's disturbingly catchy.

"I could have been allllriiiight...could have been here toniiiiight...could have been sweet as wiiiine....you could have been a ladyyyyy."

In fact it kind of reminded me of my favorite song from The Office.

"...so wrong so right all night, alright, oh yeah. Oh yeah"



We stopped off for drunk food at Somebuddy’s Casual Family Dining. It was a little Hooters-esque, but I have no problem with cute girls in short shorts sexily wiping down tables. And hey, they had poutine – official drunk food of the great white north.

In a segment on the television series "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" during the 2000 American election, Rick Mercer convinced then-Governor of Texas George W. Bush that Canada's Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, was named Jean Poutine. - Wikipedia

This was definitely one of my stranger moments in food porn. Imagine me insistently slurring, "Wait! Wait! Don't touch the poutine! I have to get my signature shot!"