A visit to the Niagara

After a day's rest to get over jetlag, we (Naseeb, her mom and sis) were off to the Niagara falls on a bus tour. Many long hours and a couple of breaks later, we reached thousand islands. Actually, the ride is quite monotonous and boring, especially if you are not driving or navigating. Thousand islands is a region in Lake Ontario where there are more than thousand islands and we were told that these are owned by American and Canadian individuals. Some of these have been gifted to them. Isn't that cool? Back home in India, people do own islands, but it is seasonal, especially monsoon season.

Now, at this point in the trip, I did a Lavanya act after a long time. I went to buy some drinking water in a shop across the dock and missed the boat which was going to show us the 1000+ islands. I had no clue about the date or time; blame it on jetlag. By the time the boat arrived, Naseeb got us icecream and we took some 'rocking' pictures of boat houses. I hope you will be able to make out the rocking of the boats in this picture :)
Moving on, we reached Niagara city in the night. After seeing the falls in the night, I realized that the long ride was really worth it. The falls seemed mystical in all those colorful lights. We enjoyed watching the American falls and the Horse shoe falls in the backdrop of nicely lit buildings in Ontario on the Canadian side.
Even as I was taking pictures of the falls, I couldn't believe it was real; I couldn't believe I had come all the way from Bangalore, India and standing close to the beautiful Niagara. The best was yet to come though.
Next morning, we were to take the maid of the mist, a boat trip close to both the American and the Horse Shoe falls.
As a build up to watching the falls, we watched a movie about how the Niagara was 'discovered' and all the daring feats attempted and acheived at the falls. There were not many people around, could be because it was already end of summer, so we quickly reached the Maid of the Mist boat, donned in blue ponchos.

As we neared the falls, there was a mad rush to take pictures, and I was part of it too. But I did take a moment or two to just watch the crystal clear water fall gracefully and powerfully over the cliff.

It was all over in a flash.. I somehow wasn't satisfied with the duration.. that is the attraction of water, for that matter anything that nature offers.

It was time to go back.. I gave away the camera and stood on the observation tower for a few minutes to take in as much of the Niagara as possible... just me and the falls, for some time.