18 April 2007

Quote:
"It's physically impossible."
--Gail

(We had a lot of fun with that line all week long!)

Canada I -- Niagara Falls

Wednesday morning I spent 3 hours on the internet answering work e-mails until my pre-paid connection ran out and it was time to check out. I walked to the Hilton, had breakfast at the Starbucks' and then checked in. I connected to the hotel internet immediately and continued checking my e-mail. Our hotel room was directly in line of view of the club, so we could see everybody going in and out. In the afternoon nobody was going in and out though, because the large steel doors were firmly shut. I wasn't able to find any signs, posters or announcements so I was beginning to wonder who on earth would be expected to turn up that night! The town was virtually empty, there were very, very few tourists about, and none of them looked like potential clubbing clientele. We might just have ended up being the only ones. Oh, plus DP, of course... I was hoping that there were at least some people in the casino who could be convinced to come to the club later on.

In the afternoon I went to the bird aviary, which was nice. I like birds. I even got to hold a grey parrot because the little girl whose turn it was got scared and didn't understand how to stretch her hand out. I took loads of pictures just because Stephen would have. I bought him one of those cuddly birds that make the real bird sound: an American robin, like I have seen them in the park everywhere.

American robin

Another one

I went to have a light lunch and then went back to the hotel room awaiting Kristine's arrival. Because we were occupying a double room with 4 people we had to employ advanced stalking tactics to get everybody plus coolers, bags and car into the hotel. Kristine arrived with little delay and set off to see the falls straight away. I nipped down to the pool which looked quite exciting and was directly in the lobby... a bit strange. But the water slide was a lot fun! I destroyed my hairdo, but whatever. Afterwards I got changed and went up to the restaurant to have a quick dinner. The views of the illuminated falls from the Hilton tower were amazing.

Before...

After...

When I returned to the room, Barb and Shawn had arrived and had already carried all the stuff upstairs. Kristine made a phone call to England to book another tour gig for which tickets had just gone on sale. She's amazing! Her phone calls are so efficient and she's managed to get front row tickets for all 7 gigs that have gone on sale so far. I'm glad she's making those calls because I am so useless with the phone and would book online and miss the best seats. Shawn and Barb had an offer for their condo faxed to the hotel and then had to sign the contract and fax it back before midnight, so we went to the business centre and waited for the fax to go through before heading to the club. We had no problems getting in on the guest list. As expected, the club was not really packed but a couple of young people had magically appeared and more kept arriving, so it was OK. The club was quite stylish with an Asian theme, and everybody was very friendly. We met Darren and James who had driven up from Ohio.

Marc came on first and played a lovely set with very danceable vocal tracks. He does look very young. George came on at around 1 AM and did a 2-hour set with new tracks that I hadn't heard in that order before. There was the usual excitement with people trying to take pictures with him and shaking his hand, but he was in a good mood and nobody was bothering him too much. Somebody even got a Culture Club record signed. After the gig we pottered around a bit and Kristine paid a short visit to the casino with Darren and James, but Barb, Shawn and I went straight back to the hotel because we would have to drive all the way to Montreal the next morning.