It's been awhile since I've made any 'proper' posts. Sometimes blogging feels a bit overwhelming, especially when I've been working a lot and feel tired. The fact that posting pics on Blogger is a bit of a PITA doesn't help. So, I've been looking back through all my photos that I need to post about and there are a LOT. Also, since it's been a long time since I took some of those pictures, I've forgotten a lot of details.
What I've decided to do for the older ones is to just post some highlight photos from those trips, and if you really like them I can always post some more from that place. More recent or memorable trips will probably get some sort of commentary. I'm just not in the mood for writing a lot and I figure at least posting some photos is better than nothing- anything to get out of this blah blogging mood!
Last night I took some time to just go through my folders and use a batch editor to resize copies of the photos to make for easier uploading. I can remember as far back as when I went to Niagara Falls, and I don't think I posted any of those pictures yet so I'll start with them.
I'd never been to North America before, and all I kept hearing about was how difficult and tiring the flight is, and how COLD it would be there. Luckily for me, I got the longer 3 day layover, whcih gave plenty of time to sleep and recover from the flight, sightsee, then get soem sleep before the return trip.
While the flight was long, it was nowhere nearly as bad as the horror stories had led me to believe. I think this was in part due to the miracle that the flight (for once) was only half full- good for me as I'd stayed up late hanging out with a friend the night before and had got no sleep!
A few of the crew decided to take a bus tour to Niagara Falls; the first stop was a wine college where we did some wine tasting and got to walk around outside. It was pretty but COLD. Then we were off to visit Niagara-on-the-Lake- a totally gorgeous little town full of old houses and which probably cost a bomb to purchase property in. We didn't get as much time in the town as I would have liked, but I did manage to run around snapping some photos to take i nthe prettiness and also grab a pastry to eat before we were off to the next stop- a lookout with a view over the river.
We were all very excited to get our first glimpse of the Falls, but we had to wait impatiently while our driver found us a parking space in the proper spot for tour buses. We were then released for a certain amount of time before we had to meet for lunch. Of course we ran over to take photos immediately :P
The power & sound of the falls is amazing- according to our tour guide the Falls weren't even at their peak when we visited... they divert a lot of it for electricity & to stop the rock eroding so much.
The weather, while cold, was perfect, with only a little bit of mist & spray and just enough sunshine to throw rainbows everywhere. It was so cool and of course perfect for our pictures.
We ate lunch in this restaurant which overlooks the falls, it was great to just watch all the rainbows come and go. Afterwards we still had a bit of time to look around and enjoy the nice day.
Our next stop was to a museum to see some films about Niagara and also some of the items on display which included a variety of vessels that people had used to go over the falls throughout the years. They ranged from simple barrels, to barrels with oxygen tanks and up to sophisticated spaceship-looking pods.
By the time we left the museum it was getting dark, on our way back to the bus we saw some Christmas lights in the park so ran over to have a look. Of course while Christmas is observed by some people in Dubai, there are not as many lights and decorations as we are used to back home so the chance to go look at sparkly lights was too good to miss.
I found this placement especially interesting- the Islamic mosque placed next to the Jewish menorah...! the other in this series was the three wise men and the star.
This blue arrangement made me think of aliens and UFOs, it was sparkling but I couldn't really get that in the photo very well. Soon it was time to head back to the bus, a good thing as we were all starting to get hit by the jetlag and just wanted to go back to the hotel for food & sleep.
I really enjoyed my visit to Niagara Falls and hopefully can go back one day during the summer!
