Niagra Falls

Today's highlight was the trip to Niagra Falls. Set in the heart of downtown Niagra and surrounded by a mixture of Hastings/Vegas kitsch the falls are incredible. You can get to within a couple of feet of the edge at the top of the falls with only a chest high railing to stop you falling in! On a blisteringly hot day the mist coming off the falls was extremely welcome.

We took the Maid of the Mist boat trip and donned the standard issue blue raincoats to get soaked at the foot of the falls. The Captain takes as close as is safe and holds the boat against the raging torrent to make sure that al are well and truly soaking wet.

The view from the boat to the turquoise water cascading from a couple of hundred feet above is amazing. Some pics below that don't really do it justice.

The Canadian's have the classic horseshoe falls and the American's have the less spectacular straight bit.

Toronto skyline

Photo below is the Toronto skyline at night from the roof of the hostel and the other pic is the weather for the week...

A little bit of Architecture

Visited the Royal Ontario Museum with extension by Libeskind and the Sharp Building at the Ontario School of Art and Design by Alsop. Both looked pretty tasty. Libeskind's extension crashes into the existing building to create a new entrance and dinosaur exhibition areas and Alsop's Sharp building flies over the top of the old art faculty building. The museum extension looked great inside and out eh ease the art building was a bunch of studios in a box on legs. Still looked great though and sits really well in the downtown area where it was built.

It's hot as hell here so easy day today and not straying too far from base. It's going to hit 95F today and with the humidity it'll feel more like 110F!!

Baseball

Had a hot day wandering around Toronto with my brothers old school friend Jim and then headed for the evening baseball game. Home team the Toronto Bluejays lost to Kansas. I didn't have a clue what was going on but it was great to watch and soak up the atmosphere. In terms of rule complexity, it makes Duckworth Lewis look like a very simple way of determining the end of a cricket game in the event of rain.....Oh and the base ball stadium was right at the bottom of the CN tower...

Downtown....

Now in the city for a couple of days...it hit 88F yesterday and heading for 95F by Friday!

Here I am........

Staying at friends house north of Toronto. Canada day celebrations, Euro 2012 final and a couple of sides of beef due on the bar-b-que for tea :-)

Just to give you an idea of scale. Lake Ontario below Toronto is five times the size of Hampshire!

Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo

Free tickets to the above was one of those happy accidents that happen on a trip. The Tattoo was basically like The Royal Tournament right down to the gun carriage race, stirring patriotic military band music and novelty acts like the Flying Grandad's! German gymnasts dressed as Kaiser Bill!

It took me until today to figure out the Scottish connection. Nova Scotia = New Scotland! Doh! There was lots of pipe and drum music, Scottish dancing, musket/rifle/cannon fire. Any excuse for a bang basically. All good stuff!

Britain (RAF Small arms display), France (see below), Germany (The Flying Grandad's), Switzerland (Central Army Band) and the US (Marine Corp Band) were all represented.

The RAF got the biggest cheer for their small arms display and marching about without stabbing each other with their bayonets!

That is until the Parisian Police Gymnasts came on. Yes you heard it right! In the midst of a European financial meltdown a team of elite gymnasts from the Parisian Police a. Exists and b. Is sent to Canada for a Tattoo. Some standard tumbling was followed by two blokes in police uniform on a trapeze 40 odd foot off the floor with no safety net. They were balanced each end of a seesaw. One acted as counterbalance as the other did head stands and the like at the other end. They stole the show. It was great!

The finale was the massed bands of all participants and a huge choir. I don't mind admitting that I was filling up and sung "God Save The Queen". Cracking stuff :-)

A couple of blurry pics of the finale below....