Canada
Again it was a good day, weatherwise and we left the immigration office and parked up on the canadian side of the falls. After a all-you-can-eat breakfast, and changing some US dollars we wandered down to the Canadian views of the falls, it's was a lot more impressive from this side, and there were a lot more tourists here too.
After doing the usual tourist walk we left Niagra Falls behind and headed to Mississauga, Toronto and Julias' place. We arrived a little early, and so spent a couple of hours looking round the shops. Early evening and Julie and her daughter returned to there appartment block, after a quick greeting in the car park, we all went up to the 8th floor.
A synopsis of the next 5 days
We settled in at Julias. Her appartment was great, and had a huge balcony giving a great view over the town. And it was this balcony that was to give us the drama of our stay. Julia and Rebecca don't live alone in the appartment, they have another house guest, and early the first morning of our stay, this house guest fell off the balcony 6 floors, smashing into the 2nd floor balconies somehow. Julia and Rebecca were hysterical, and after Julia had been down to the 2nd floor appartment, the worst was confirmed. Mollie was dead. Mollie was there house guest, a lovely young rusty cat, they had adopted from a cats home, after it was abandoned by its previous owners. However the story didn't end there, The person who's balcony Mollie had crashed into came up to the 8th floor, and having returned to his balcony to pick the cat up, he had found that it had dissapeared. Yes, the dead cat had left the balcony. So, now we had a search on, and we started with the grounds, in the rain, but no luck, then we tried to look down onto the balconies, but no luck there either. We knocked on a couple of doors, and I tried a few windows, and there she was. On the 2nd floor, hiding behind a barbeque, and loooking quite remarkable for a dead cat. Maria and Rebecca picked her up and we headed back to the appt. I managed to find a vet in the yellow pages, and off we flew. Well the vet couldn't do much until they had examined Mollie, so they kept her in, she obviously had a bad leg, and she had cut or bitten a large piece from her lip, but the shock and possible internal injuries were the worst fear. The next four days were filled with phone calls to the vets, and the news went from bad to good, back to bad and then to good again. Eventually Mollie returned home on the day we were leaving, and she seemed to be on the mend, looking a little shaken, and with her leg in a cast, but fairly perky all the same. I wander how many lives she used up?
That is really about all there was of interest in our short visit to Canada. We did drive into Toronto, and below is the Toronto city centre, and the CN Tower, but due to a really low temperature not a lot else was done.
We had a good time staying with Julia and Rebecca, with some good laughs, and nice home cooked food, which really made a change from Dennys or Ponderosa!. We left Julias and Canada behind on the 8th October and took a nervous drive towards Niagra again and our meeting with the US immigartion department. We were stopped at the checkpoint and asked our nationality and if we had a visa waiver, which we had not, as you know. We then proceeded upstairs to the immigration office, which was quiet, a large family, a well dressed Italian looking guy, and us. After about 5minutes we were called to the desk, and we handed our passports over, and a application form. In the meantime 2 customs officers came out and asked the Italian! man a few questions, then proceeded to handcuff him, and escort him from the building. This was quite un-nerving as we sat and watched. But after another 5 minutes or so, we were called back to the desk, we paid our $6 each for a new waiver, and we were back in the USA atleast until the 7th Jan 2001.