Niagara Falls, Canada/Rochester, NY

I can't believe that I let a month go by without posting, especially since I meant to post about Niagara Falls. But I was sidetracked. Lance and I acquired a puppy and she has been keeping us pretty busy. I'm behind on pretty much everything.

But I have time now.

So...May 3, I went to Niagara Falls, Canada with two classmates from my training course in Rochester.

It didn't take very long to get there. And we took a detour via the outlet mall in Niagara Falls, NY. Not many bargains to be had there, at least for me, but I did pick up some very reasonably priced tops at the Gap Outlet and some cheap flip-flops from the Eddie Bauer outlet (which is good, because one pair has already been mutilated by puppy, so I'm only out $5).

Anyway, around mid-day that day, we arrived at the Canadian border. We found a place to park near the Niagara Parks Greenhouse, which, in all honesty, I found more to fascinate me than I did at the falls.

And it wasn't that the falls were uninteresting. I'm sure they're breathtaking. It's just that we couldn't really see them from our vantage point. It was raining pretty hard, which only made the mist at the falls that much thicker, obscuring our view of everything.

Sadly, I don't have much to report. We weren't there even 2 hours before we said so long to Canada and headed back to New York. It was fun, but also disappointing. I would like to go again someday when the weather is actually better.

Niagara pics here (mostly greenhouse photos)

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Here's a rundown of stuff in Rochester, NY:

Comix Cafe: The suck. The comedy pretty much sucked. The food sucked. Not impressed in the slightest.

Mex: went here for Cinqo De Mayo. Insanely crowded. In a really hip, artsy neighborhood. I liked the atmosphere here: Mexican religious art mixed with paintings of skeletons and stuff. Very eclectic. But the margaritas were really strong (either good or bad, depending on how much you actually like your margaritas to taste like tequila), the food was eh. The big problem was the wait. It took us 90 minutes to get seated, which I can't really complain about, because we were a party of 9 who did not call ahead for a table. But once we were seated...another 90 minutes for the food. To summarize: come here any other day but May 5th. However, the staff at Mex was good to us and gave us a huge discount on our bill and free drinks because of our wait. Brownie points for that.

Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse: like any other steakhouse I guess, except for the talking animal heads on the walls. (If you sit below the buffalo head, watch out. You will have a coronary when it suddenly starts talking out of nowhere.)

Tully's: This place became a favorite for our group, partly because it was right down the street from the hotel, and also because they had pool tables. Food is pretty good, but nothing particularly special.

My overall impression of Rochester isn't great. I actually loved the smaller towns surrounding Rochester (charming Pittsford, especially...wish I had spent more time exploring there). But then again, this was a business trip, not a pleasure trip, so I tried to make the best of it.