Monday, January 9, 2012

Day 21/30 - Our Honeymoon...


We decided on going to Niagara Falls for our honeymoon. I really wanted to go on a cruise/someplace warm or a cross Canada trip via train but my fear of flying and the crazy expense to travel cross Canada on a train was so not in our budget that it didn't really leave us with too many options. I had never been to Niagara Falls before so it was definitely exciting for me. It also seems to be a popular honeymoon destination so why the heck not :) The drive up there was pretty boring but that is to be expected when all you see is long stretches of highway.

We finally got there, got our room keys and took a ride up to our floor on the elevator. I am normally not scared of elevators but when they zoom up about 60 some odd floors I tend to get a bit nervous. We were soooo HIGH up. I really was afraid that that would be the week that the building decides to snap in two, with us still in it. The hotel we stayed at had just built the new tower that we were staying in so yeah it snapping in two in my mind really wasn't that impossible. (LOL)

We had a pretty good view of both the American and Canadian falls. It was actually beautiful and after the initial look out the window wall (the outside wall was in fact just a window from floor to ceiling and wall to wall) I stayed the heck as far away from it as possible. We were HIGH and I couldn't help but envision myself hurdling to the ground each time I looked out and down. ~shudder. But we did have some amazing views! At night it was breath taking as well. We also had prime seats for the light show on the American Falls AND for the firework displays that happened once or twice that week.

The Horse Shoe Falls.
You can see that we are right across from one of the casinos. We did go in there one night and spent an hour or so blowing $20 bucks total on the penny and 5 cent machine and that was enough for me. I have never been to a casino before so it was fun in that aspect but meh. It was all electronic so it's not like you pull a lever (well you still could) and you would have your winnings come rushing out the bottom. It was a piece of paper that you fed into the next machine you wanted to play. WOOOOO fun....not.

American Falls
The Sky Wheel at night.
The Casino at night.
American Falls at night
We decided to take a trip behind the falls first. I literally couldn't stop snapping photos of the falls. They just kept turning out so beautiful. It was super loud to and really misty but it was so worth it. We got to wear these nifty garbage bag like rain coat things they give you. You can see how thrilled I am by this picture.


So awesomely amazing!
This I believe is directly behind the falls, so the water is rushing down in front of the opening.
We then trekked down along the river snapping photos because how could you not resist take a million pictures of the same falls over and over again. It really is amazing to see in person. You see that tiny teeny boat in the picture? Yep we went on that too (Maid of the Mist). That was a little scary and since we just made the boat we got stuck on the bottom level but I think that was a good thing since it sheltered us a bit from getting soaked. It was a pretty bumpy ride.


We eventually made it to the White Water Walk, where we took more photos of the water. It was soo loud here and had some interesting photo opportunities including this gem that I couldn't resist snapping. No we didn't add to it because that is sort of gross, but it was interesting none the less.

Lots of bits of gum stuck to the rocks.

The whole week went by pretty fast and I don't think I have ever done so much walking in my life. There were some pretty steep hills going to and from the hotel which got to be tiring after awhile. By the end of the week we were pretty dead on our feet. Other random things we did that week were:

We went to one of the wax museums where we saw all sorts of stars and scenes from movies. We even saw the Simpsons and unfortunately for me ET. Seriously TAM he is CREEPY!!! There is nothing cute about him (especially here depicted in wax). You can see by my face how thrilled I am that Chris made me stand in front of him for a picture. I had nightmares after my sister brought me to see ET at the movies as a child. I still can picture ET standing at the bottom of my bed when my mom turned the lights out point at me with his glowy finger. I haven't watched that movie since, well that isn't true. Over Christmas Space had ET on and I sort of half watched it. The only part where ET is even remotely "cute" is when Drew Barrymore comes in and sees him for the first time and screams, which makes him scream and everyone else scream. That is the only cute part!


We also went to Ripley's Believe It or Not where we rubbed the belly of the 'good luck statue' which according to the sign " is a statue made out of 3 million macerated US dollars. Gamblers in China believe that rubbing the belly of  symbol of good fortune, will bring them good luck." How could you not rub it's belly! Who doesn't need good luck! 

seriously I don't know why my eyes are always red in photos ;)
We also had fun running through the spinning tunnel at the end which wow made you feel completely hammered since there was no possible way to walk to the end without almost falling on your bum! Then as we were leaving the building we decided to hold hands and get a hot wax molding of them. We added our wedding date and little tiny rings to the hands and voila we had a super neat token of our wedding and honeymoon.

At some point we also went on the giant Sky Wheel. In theory I was excited to go on this since I thought it would be fun. That is until we got closer to it and I saw just how high it would go. I still managed to gather enough courage to go on it and was relieved when we got our own compartment. I was fearing we would get stuck with people that would think it was super fun to rock the compartment back and forth. If you haven't guess already I don't do well with heights. It was alright until we got near the top and then I started to freak. Chris not only took a few photos of me but also took a video of me freaking out!! I didn't know he was taking a video either until after. When I was safely on the ground and back home and watched said video it was actually pretty hilarious, but then again I am braver on the ground and was very far away from it by then.

Me trying to wear a brave face.
I also must be a sucker for punishment because I convinced myself that we needed to also go back on it when it was dark out to see everything all lit up at night. Now that I think about it I really don't know why since we could see the same views but higher from our hotel room window. None the less we went on it again, and again I freaked out when we got to the top. Although after we got off we took what is probably my most favorite picture of our whole trip! The wheel looked so cool at night all lit up.


Near the end of the week we went to visit the floral clock which was pretty impressive and also took a tour of the power plant that was near by. Then it was off to the butterfly conservatory. I doubt I will ever go back in there if we ever go to Niagara falls again because while I love the beautiful patterns and colours on butterfly's I.DO.NOT.WANT.THEM to touch me EVER. Seriously they creep me out! There were hundreds of these things flying around. No where was safe. Thankfully none actually landed on me or I don't know what I would have done. I seriously probably would have ran out of there screaming (well maybe I am being a bit dramatic here, more like I probably would have freaked out, swatted at it and squashed the poor thing). In all seriousness though, I was actually really scared that I would do just that and I am sure that sort of thing is frowned upon. They had these plates of oranges with a bunch of them feeding off of it and that was enough to creep me out. We left pretty quickly lol. Chris thought it was funny as well. Nice eh!

These are just the highlights from our trip since we did a lot more that I mentioned. There is so much to do there that we didn't really feel like we scratched the surface. By the end of the week we were so exhausted from all the walking around we got lazy and stayed as close to the hotel as we could. Then it was the long drive back to reality. I'm glad that we got a week away from everything though! Hopefully sometime we will go back again and see more then what we were able to the last time. I actually think it would be neat to see it in the winter time, just to see how different it is.

What did you do for your honeymoon? Or what is your dream honeymoon?
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