| Spring Break Weekend 2005 |
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| My Spring Break Trip 2005 to Buffalo (NY), Niagara Falls (NY), Niagara Falls (Ontario, Canada) and Toronto (Ontario, Canada). In 2005 Spring Break ran from Friday, March 4 to Sunday, March 13. In the first weekend of this break Saint Peter�s College�s men�s and women�s teams had to compete in the MAAC basketball finals in the city of Buffalo in upstate New York right across from the Canadian border. We went there with a group of about 40 students. Like most of the time, I was the only foreign student joining in the activity. However, I do enjoy this very much because I get an undisturbed view of American college life in all its glory. However, part of me remains a tourist wanting to see stuff, which causes me to perhaps visit more features of the areas I go to, than would a local dweller or domestic tourist. As a result, I went on this trip to Buffalo and its surrounding area with more interests than watching basketball only. Thursday, March 3, 2005 We left this morning to Buffalo, NY by bus at 6.30am. We missed all classes scheduled for this final day before Spring Break. The bus ride took about 7 hours and we arrived just 10 minutes before the women�s game started at 2pm. They lost their first game, and because of the single knockout system, they were eliminated from further play. Then we went to our hotel in the adjacent town of Niagara Falls, NY famous for its waterfalls with the same name. From the hotel room we could see the mist of the falls as well as several casinos on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. The first night some of us went to the casinos in either Canada or New York state (on Indian land), but most went to Club Malibu in Niagara Falls, NY. Friday, March 4, 2005 Since the women�s team lost yesterday, there were no games to attend today. Therefore, I planned to visit Toronto in Ontario, Canada, only a two hour bus ride away. Nobody seemed to understand why I wanted to go; they thought the casinos were a lot more interesting. Unlike me, most of the students just wanted to visit casinos for 3 days straight. Anyway, I should have gotten up earlier, but since it got kind of late last night I left the hotel at about 11.45am. I took a cab to the Niagara Falls bus station on the Canadian side of the border. I had never crossed a border in a cab, and it was my first visit ever to Canada as well. The bus left at 12.30pm and took about 2 hours to get to downtown Toronto. It took me about a half hour to walk to the Canada National Tower during which I took a lot of pictures. Then I went up in the tallest freestanding structure in the world, namely 553 meters or 1,815 feet. Many critics consider it not a building but a tower since it does not have occupied functional floors, and believe that Taipei 101 is today�s tallest building in the world. The CN Tower features the Glass Floor (see pictures) at a height of 342 meters or 1,122 feet, and the Indoor Observation Deck at 346 meters or 1,136 feet. Further up, one encounters the Sky Pod; the World�s Highest Public Observation Deck at 447 meters or 1,465 feet. After visiting the tower, I walked around in downtown Toronto for a few hours and had a nutritious meal at McDonald�s. Then I went back to the Coach Canada station and took the bus back to Niagara Falls at 7.30pm. I thought I would save some time and take the bus straight to Buffalo. However, it appeared that Buffalo was located 20 miles further south, whereas I thought it was right next to Niagara Falls. I guess I fell asleep during the ride from the stadium in Buffalo to the hotel in Niagara Falls yesterday, since that seemed like five minutes. As a result, I had to take a local bus back up to Niagara Falls. I was back in the hotel at about 1.00am; too late to catch up with my buds in a club in Canada. Saturday, March 5, 2005 Next morning we got up in time for breakfast at 11am. Today the men�s team had its first game at 4.30pm; our bus from Niagara Falls to Buffalo left at 2.30pm. Because of the fact that nobody else seemed to have any interest in seeing the Niagara Falls (except for two professors who apparently saw me there), I walked there by myself from the hotel in about 10 minutes. It was great to see the Falls in the winter; everything in its vicinity was covered in a thick layer of frozen mist (see pictures). After about two hours I went back to the hotel and we left for Buffalo at 2.30pm. In Buffalo some of us (Dominic, Tommy, Matt, Frank, and me; see picture) went for a solid meal of 6 pounds of chicken wings and cold beer, after which the game started. Despite our support (I am a supporter of the more quiet kind) the Saint Peter�s men�s team lost its first game, after which plans were made immediately to return early the next morning. When back in Buffalo, Frank and I went to a casino and had some dinner at Denny�s. After that we all went to Club Malibu again to close our short but enjoyable Spring Break trip. Sunday, March 6, 2005 Most of us left the club at about 3am, and went back to the hotel to do some final packing. The bus left Niagara Falls at 5am and arrived at Saint Peter�s College in Jersey City at about 12noon. |
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