Days 12, 13 & 14: Relaxing in Hamilton

Day 12

Nothing much to report - day of relaxation. When we went out for breakfast, a man on a skateboard sailed past on the “sidewalk”, pushing a trolley full of junk. Briefly wondered if we’d stumbled into alternate Hill Valley.

Nice wrap for lunch.

…yeah that’s the highlight! Rained a lot. Found the best of two chocolate shops - this after changing all our USD to CAD because we have spent way too much money here.

***

Day 13

Another relaxing day. Attempted to arrange to meet our friends but we heard that one of them had had a family emergency. My fiancé and I shopped for a bit then saw Ant-Man at the local cinema - sadly an average film. We ate at the burger place again (my Sk8er Boi burger had peanut butter on it - somehow it tasted amazing!).

Will be leaving tomorrow - glad I no longer have to run the gauntlet of beggars and people intruding on my space for change.

***

Day 14

With our check out extended to 2pm, we had a luxurious sleep in (9am) which I needed after wedding guests next door yammered away past 4am. We had apple danishes from the previous night for breakfast, followed by lunch.

Once everything was ready, we farewelled our relaxing abode and called a taxi. Our driver was as aggressive as a New Yorker, though his vehicle was equipped with shit brakes (how we did not cause a pile up on the motorway, I do not know). However, he retained a particular Canadian habit. Where most taxi drivers would be stoically silent, he kept saying, “Sorry.”

We had to wait for ages in a stationary queue because British Airways workers do not start until exactly 3 hours before the flight.

Once past screening, we enjoyed Tim Hortons for the very last time then went to our gate where you could use iPads to surf the internet and order food right to your table. I must have looked so sad when the waiter said they were out of blueberry cream cheese danishes (my fiancé said I looked miserable) that they brought it in from elsewhere in the airport!

Boarded at 6pm and took off early! Many seats empty. Curled up against my fiancé and managed to sleep…

Day 11: Toronto

Woke just before the 7:30am alarm, though the phone had woken us after midnight as some telemarketer seemed to be taking advantage of my fiancé’s roaming plan. After another pleasant breakfast, we met one of our friends at 10:30am outside, ready for our day trip to Toronto.

Frustratingly, Hamilton only has two trains that go there in the morning, all before 7am. This was useless to us, so we had to make use of the GO Station’s bus area instead. I had never seen a bus station - all those long bays! The ticket cost $23 but you could use any method of transport (bus or train).

We took the bus to Aldershot Station then scampered over to the platform. This arrangement seems ridiculous for Hamilton residents to put up with - the bus that went all the way to Toronto was crowded and has been known to hit horrid delays (sometimes more than 2 hours). The train is technically longer at 90 minutes.

A huge arse thing pulled into the train station. Green and house-sized, it crawled towards us. This was a true triple decker, not like the impostors on Sydney’s tracks. Climbing inside felt like disappearing into a maze of seats and stairs. Very comfy blue seats. They were squishy! The train trundled towards Toronto, never very fast. We all wondered later why there was a not a quick ferry between the two cities.

Our tickets were checked as we drew closer to Union Station. And then I was plastering my face to the window, angling my head up to see most of the CN Tower, though not the tip of it. We disembarked and hunted down food in a nearby food court. The CN Tower, like many other towers with its spire and rounded top, looked like it really was a UFO landing pad.

My fiancé’s friend said we could use the subway to reach Casa Loma, our first Toronto destination. $3 buys a tiny token (it is the size of an Australian 5 cent piece) that, when dropped into a gate, lets you through. It’s less hot than New York subways! The train rolled in quickly and we boarded. All the compartments were open and the carriages bent on the corners so you could not see one end to the other.

We left at Dupont. You hit a button on a machine for a transfer ticket to use on a bus or at another train station - a lot of opportunity for abuse, I think, because you can just keep hitting the button. You are not allowed to use the transfer ticket at the station you buy it from.

The bright blue sky above us, we walked up to Casa Loma, a faux castle built in 1914. It looked fake, like it was taken from a storybook. Some of it seemed to be undergoing restoration. The gardens and fountain out the front were nice.

Mi casa es su casa!

We entered, got tickets, prepared to move forward…The guy that took our stubs followed us a few steps in, revealing to my delight that we had stumbled into Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters - well, parts filmed for the X-Men movie.

“Over there is Professor X’s office,” he said, pointing. “And that’s the corridor with the metal door. And the library was used as a classroom.”

Hyperventilation material. I was totally a mutant.

Casa Loma was built at the behest of Sir Henry Mill Pellatt who could not afford to keep the behemoth in the Great Depression. Parts of it weren’t finished. His wife was very involved with Girl Guides - I took photos of some uniforms we found.

Pellatt was an avid collector and history buff, judging by the random shit in all the rooms. He even had a replica of the British coronation chair, Stone of Scone and all. And he had a giant moose head - holy crap, if that’s just a head, those things must be HUGE. Our friend said they are naturally aggressive beasts. Pellatt had to auction off most of his random shit to pay his bills. We started in the basement which had lots of movie posters boasting what had been filmed there.

"Look at the size of that thing!" - Wedge Antilles

The wine cellar had a secret passage up to Pellatt’s office (“You’d want access to your wine, I guess,” my fiancé said) which did not have Professor X, alas. We explored the ridiculously decadent guest rooms and the surprisingly modern amenities - baths! Toilets! And a shower!? All very expensive back then. The place smelled like a school. I guess that’s because of the wood! This Pellatt guy even had a wall organ, geez.

Look familiar? You've probably seen it before...

We braved tiny winding metal stairs (even medieval castle-goers would have baulked) to the top of the Scottish Tower which had a great, if barred, view of Toronto’s skyline. Every brick up there was crowded with graffiti. I have never seen the like in any historical site. It was everywhere. This tower is where super sekit sonar was being researched during World War II. Hilariously, the only security used at the time was a sign that apologised to visitors that this area was under construction. Men wore worker’s gear and walked right by oblivious partygoers who went to dances there on Saturday nights.

If only Pellatt knew how good the view would get...

We went from this great height to the tunnel in the basement that ran to the stables and coach house across the road - the government had not let the Pellatts sequester the road to join their bits of property. Haha. This was a creepy, dank, moist tunnel that seemed to run forever. Nice antique cars on display in the stables. Despite being cleaned out for deacdes, I swear the the place still smelled of horse poo.

Pellatt loved his horses. Dude spent way too much on random shit.

The Casa runs out of good gelato early it seems so I suffered without chocolate. Then we got lost in the small garden looking for a second exit (there was none!). Finally we left, heading back - to the CN Tower!

A “skywalk” took us right from Union Station to the tower, though it seemed to twist and turn for ages before we finally arrived at the huge cluster of people trying to get in. We freaked - it was 4pm, how would we make the 5:37pm train that went all the way to the Hamilton GO Station!?

“Are you part of the group?” a woman asked.

We said no - and were hurried through metal detectors that failed to pick up the coins in in my fiancé’s pockets. The tower stretched high above us, once the tallest tower in the world (it was for over three decades - now it’s the third tallest!). Its only claim to fame these days is that it’s the “tallest free-standing structure in the Western Hemisphere”, according to Wikipedia.

$35 each to go up. Youch. They tried to make us do a green screen photo which we avoided. Then we queued for a lift. Kept queuing. Waiting. Finally we crammed in then took the 1 minute voyage to the top. Great views though while I was ecstatic, my fiancé was less so - he has a fear of heights. The best views through the glass were stolen by the restaurant.

Toronto!

People crowded on the “first glass floor in the world!” (signs were very proud of this fact, though many were still claiming that it was the tallest tower in the world). Fewer people seemed to want to go further away from the “safety” of the edge so I went to the centre to jump on a glass panel. I got great photos of below. My fiancé gingerly walked on metal beams, looking very worried. He likes to master his fears.

Would you jump on that? ;D I did!

Downstairs on the next level was a grill obscured the view but you could expose yourself to the very windy elements! Down, down again. My fiancé held tightly onto me to keep me from falling through the glass panel in the floor of the lift should it randomly disintegrate. Aha, gift shop time.

We had just 30 minutes before our train We walked all the way back, had drinks, then hung with a pack of people also watching the screens avidly, waiting for our listed train to be given a platform. The moment it was announced, people practically ran, trying to get the best spots, thus the best seats.

The train inched its way in. Then bedlam. I clambered to the top level and found us three seats. It was a long 90 minute journey home but it was alllll the way to Hamilton! Farewelled our friend and had dinner.

Now - just finished this infernal entry of this infernal travel journal.

Day 10: Dundurn Castle & Stoney Creek

The morning dragged from 6am, when my eyes opened and refused to reseal. We had breakfast (a Banana Nut Nutella Muffin for me!) then spent so much time doing nothing that it was soon late enough for housekeeping to attempt a break-in. Then our trials truly began.

The two museums I wanted to visit were only open 12-4pm which already wiped out the morning and made things a bit of a squeeze. We’d need to rely on buses that a Hamilton website assured me were the correct ones.

We left the hotel at 10:30am and looked for Bus 5. It took some wandering around to find it. Then the driver directed us to another road/stop. This other Bus 5 turfed us off; the driver said he went nowhere near Dundurn Castle and we should find Bus 8. Eventually found the stop in question but, unlike in Australia, stops here do not have a schedule, merely a number, making things so confusing.

At 11:15, I returned to the hotel, defeated by Hamilton’s public transportation system and upset that the walk to Dundurn Castle could have been accomplished in this time. We arranged a taxi at the front of the hotel. We were conveyed within minutes to our destination.

Dundurn Castle - worth the angst

It was 25 minutes before opening time so we wandered about, taking in the expansive green lawn that led to a stately 18th century mansion (fashionably called a “castle”). I hunted down earthworks, eventually finding a suspicious ridge at the back of Dundurn, extending over a long drop. A very defensible position by all accounts but where would the earthworks be on the edge?

Baffling earthworks = pretty path

Hamilton’s peculiar ham stench was strongest here and I saw some industrial activity down by the water of Hamilton Harbour. Later in the day I would remember my Canadian Internet friend telling me that Hamilton smelled bad because of this. Mystery solved! It also made my fiancé wonder if the high numbers of people with physical disabilities on downtown Hamilton’s streets were caused by this. I am dubious and still think Hamilton is Mobility Scooter Central because it is so flat.

Anyway, we returned to the gift shop, a separate building from the grand house. At 12pm on the dot (no earlier!) they opened the door and sold tickets to a small cluster of us, promising an instant tour once the last of us had paid.

We were told that this building was the old coach house and had once been wooden, which was considered a bad idea because FIRE. The house itself was built in the 1830s for “Sir Allan” (our guide said his name so fondly and casually - he is Sir Allan McNab), after the War of 1812. Earlier it had been a farmhouse with British soldiers parked behind earthworks. The farmhouse was incorporated into the hella large “castle”. When we were in the basement later, a section of the wall had been left exposed to reveal the old foundations. A house within a house - which may explain the odd levels that did not always match up.

Our guide bypassed the front door by going in another entrance - the curator preferred the main door not to be opened lest it gain too much wear and tear. Dundurn was explained to us as being brick but with the appearance of stone.

As we entered through the side, our guide pointed out skylights in the ground - for the tunnel. It was built so British soldiers could escape beneath the earthworks should they be overrun by Americans. Curiously, there was a building on top of it instead of earthworks. What gives? Dear Sir Allan re-landscaped. It made sense now. The odd ridge at the back must have been caused by the earthworks being destroyed.

Then we were inside. It was a smaller Downton Abbey, but not by much! Sir Allan wasn’t filthy rich so no marble or really high ceilings for him. No, he had the walls painted to look like marble and, following the fashion of the day, had the door knobs lowered because people started figuring out that if you did that, it made your walls look taller and more expensive.

Note the marble-painted wall!

Dundurn has 40 rooms, most of which were restored and furnished. 19 were below in the basement. The library and study were referred to by our guide as a “man cave” because of course women didn’t go in there to read or discuss political matters.

Glass was very expensive back in the day and often broke on the way to Canada from England so twice the amount was always ordered for the journey. 95% of the original floorboards creaked and cracked beneath our feet as we traipsed about, trying to shrink after being told that we should not even touch the walls, lest they be destroyed. Treated handrails were allowed to know the acid of our fingers, probably for OH&S reasons.

Pretty swanky sitting room.

An impressive house, made more so by “technology”. Water was pumped from cisterns for cooking and cleaning. It was fed from the attic to the bath for the men’s bathroom (very cold water for them!). Women of course never wanted people to know when they were naked so they had hip tubs in their rooms. Hot water was brought to them for that purpose.

The bedrooms were small but the beds could comfortably sleep my 6 foot brother. The sitting room was where everything else happened, such as entertaining friends. The two MacNab daughters shared a sitting room. We were told that MacNab’s oldest daughter married some British dude and moved over there with him, eventually becoming an ancestress of Camilla Parker-Bowles, who, our guide proudly said, is the Royal Patron of Dundurn, the only site in Canada to claim such an honour.

Not a bad place for a nap...

We went past the butler’s room and dumbwaiter to the lower level. Our guide claimed that Dundurn would have been quite a good house to work at - hand-pumped water gas lights aaand windows down in the basement! Luxury!

The spices were kept locked up, the key for the chef alone. Spices were of course very expensive. In the kitchen we tried shortbread cooked on the old cast iron cooker. Tasty. The cook there was teaching two summer students. We were told we were lucky the fire had only just started - the place would be hell later. Then we went through the old tunnel (the oldest part of the place) to the wood vault which was actually where British troops had originally kept things that went boom.

We were released into sunshine so traded our crumpled tickets to enter the nearby military museum where I gorged myself on the details of the War of 1812. From here the British sent their forces that night, to the Battle of Stoney Creek…

We walked back to the hotel via lunch. It was 2:40pm. We had to chance yet another taxi to make it in time. Then we were finally at Battlefield House and Museum, marking the area where the Battle of Stoney Creek took place on June 6, 1813.

From what I can gather, no one won land or power in the War of 1812 but it set the Canadians apart from the Americans. The British were outnumbered for this particular battle, but they struck at night to hide their numbers. They nabbed two generals and sent the Americans packing. Canada’s future - in particular, Ontario - was safe!

Having just got there in time for a tour with two other people, we were first taken to a monument built in 1913 to commemorate 100 years of peace with the US. It was like a faux castle with the shape of a stegosaurus’ long neck. Many stairs. We were actually able to see Toronto and its CN Tower from there! It was erected by the granddaughter of the people who lived in the house when it was captured by American troops.

Compensating for something? ;)

We walked down a path lined with greenery to the house that had belonged to the Gage family. First a log cabin in 1796, it became a “storey-and-a-half frame house”. Guessing this explains the bricks inside wooden grids in the walls. Later in the 1830s, while MacNab was splashing out at Dundurn, the more modest Gage family was converting their attic into a second floor to hold the bedrooms needed for their 10 children.

The 400 acres they owed was given - simply given - to them because they said they were loyal to Britain, despite moving from America. There was original stencilling on the plaster. Wow. Such an old leaf pattern and a sign of wealth. Someone was paid to do that - and to paint the fireplace to look like it was made of marble!!

This house: outlasting battles since 1813

The guide passed around an earthy brown block and asked us to guess what it is - an expensive commodity, she said. One of the other people with us said it was cinnamon but I rolled my eyes and said it was tea. I was the only one who guessed correctly.

Later, upstairs, another owner added a ballroom. The floor sloped in a room up there; wires were slowly fixing it. We played skittles, a 19th century game like miniature bowling - it had tiny pins in compartments. You wind string around a spinner, pull hard and watch it go. I scored 100, the highest the guide had ever seen. Everyone else got 25 or 5.

Down in the old basement were hand hewn beams in the ceiling - they still bore the axe marks. Wow. The female Gages were thrown down here when the American troops arrived, turning the building into their headquarters. A neighbour noticed and went to Burlington (now Dundurn) to warn the British.

After the Battle of Stoney Creek, the family went on with their lives. Huzzah. I looked out at the flat, grassy battlefield. A warm, pleasant place to fight in June. Less of a clusterfuck than the Scots’ attempted night battle at Culloden in Scotland.

Picnic spot or battle site?

Later, we discovered that the gift shop building was actually a 19th century house belonging to a branch of the Gage family who donated it. A truck moved it to its current location.

It was interesting to see the difference between the two houses. The MacNabs had water pumps in the 1830s - the Gages kept using buckets and bowls. You can guess who had more money.

We walked to a friend’s workplace nearby. Had dinner with her, then she put us on the right bus to get “home”.

Now in hotel room. There is an annoying vibrating sound as construction is being done somewhere in the building…at 9pm at night. Ugh.

Day 9: Hamilton

A much needed day of rest. We left at 8am for a nearby cafe, huddled beneath an umbrella. It poured. And poured. And poured. A good day to fall on our “laundry” day. The rain had chased away other customers, so we had the cafe to ourselves. A Nutella bagel was on my agenda - it seemed nuttier somehow. Loved it! Nutella seems to be a bit of thing here at the moment. The Canadian workers in the cafe were making liberal use of the word “eh”.

All the Nutella you can handle!

Then it was time for the laundry expedition! James Street North seemed much longer than we recalled and I grew more irritable with each intersection that dared cross our path. Finally we got to the laundromat. It had two rooms lined with industrial dryers and washes - some of the latter were huge, ranging from single load to double load to triple load (we used this one) to maxi load. The place felt like a sauna.

We fed our quarters in then passed the time. Read books. Wrote postcards. Observed a dude empty someone else’s washing, presumably from his favourite machine as there were many others available. Ascertained they were not his owing to frilly knickers and two confused women who came to claim them.

Washer - 23 minutes. Dryer - 32 + 18 minutes. All done!

The rain had eased so I foolishly thought that we could see Dundurn Castle today. The torrents were back as we bought bus tokens from a convenience store and made our way to James St South. We decided instead to stay put and bought the newly released Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee before having lunch at some cafe before returning to hover while our room was cleaned.

Read Go Set A Watchman. Very impressed but it was also an uncomfortable read.

Day 8: Hamilton

Woke at 6am after eight hours of sleep. One of our first discoveries was that the historical sites I wanted to visit were all closed on Mondays. I was thankful I had bothered to check their opening hours. Instead, we decided on walking along James Street to revisit sights we had been shown on our first night in Hamilton.

We began our journey at a Tim Hortons which yielded breakfast - very cheap and quite nice. It was wonderful to nurse a cup of tea and a sugar-dusted choc-chip muffin.

Then we hit James Street North! There we discovered more of the Monday Phenomenon - many shops were closed until Tuesday. We passed a church, the long barracks (which were closed for filming, much to my excitement - a sign warned the film crew not to park in there!), old buildings used as shops and finally LIUNA Station.

LIUNA was opened in 1931 before being closed in the 1990s. It is a grand columned building set behind beautiful gardens filled with flowers, statues (who look far too excited) and a nice fountain. It is now used an office and ballroom - very clever. The large space inside would be both spacious and grandiose, if it is anything like other large stations built at the time.

It has been used in many movies, including the aforementioned X-Men. Happily, we did not run into Magneto attempting to kidnap Rogue, nor did we see many people either.

Mutants not included.

We headed south, perplexed as to why everything on James Street smelled like cooking ham. Not much of note on this side, though we saw old buildings used as residences - they had a very distinctive style, many with round “towers”. Very quaint - I liked them, but they were not exciting after the first few minutes of walking.

Sabrina the Teenage Witch vibes, srsly.

We stopped at a pharmacy/post office to get stamps. Post boxes in Canada look like vandalised garbage bins - they are covered in weird sticky pink/red stuff. It is very easy to miss them on a street as they look like the sort of thing you’d find ripped posters and lost pet signs on. One we passed had “cock” scrawled onto it - this penis-obsessed miscreant continued onto other surfaces.

We turned back, walking down Bay Street instead (named so because it used to go to “Burlington Bay” which is now named “Hamilton Harbour”). Not much of interest to see - more houses. Paused at a road to let a car go past, but the drive insisted on waving us through first.

Canadians are very nice and polite people. It is a given that you will hold the door open for the person behind you. I like it here. The one thing I don't agree with is that in Canada brothels are illegal.

Did some more shopping. At this rate I won’t need to do laundry! I also bought Hersheys Hugs (another name for Hersheys Kisses haha) and returned to the hotel where relaxing lotions were awaiting us. The one to ease aching feet was super effective!

I made with Jon who I would be seeing in England. Read Tarkin which I bought here.

We had Subway for dinner. They have lobster subs here!

Day 7: Niagara Falls

Today we went to “The Falls”, as they are locally known. My fiancé and I enjoyed the hotel’s breakfast and at long last I was given what I deem to be excellent waffles. They were three small delights, topped with blueberries and strawberries. Whipped cream and sliced bananas ringed them. When smothered in maple syrup - heavenly.

I hurriedly wrote in my travel journal then we were being picked up in my fiancé’s friend’s car which jerked disconcertingly. We stopped by a Tim Hortons for our friends’ stomachs and I discovered the amazing menu. Real steeped tea!? Bakery goodness!? Apparently Tim Hortons is a Hamilton institution (78 in the greater area!) though it has since spread through Ontario and to worldwide locations.

The journey took under an hour. On the way we passed an abandoned motel and theme park - both looked very creepy. When we neared out destination, one of my fiancé’s friends joked about accidentally taking the left lane, which headed to the Rainbow Bridge crossing into America (“We’re close enough to throw a baseball over!” he’d said earlier). But happily he veered into the right lane, towards Niagara Falls.

What awaited us was a tourist town to rival those found on the English beachside. It was a 24/7 Royal Easter Show. After my fiancé’s friend made use of one of the many parking lots (it’s a huge business - you can pay between $8-30 to stow your car). We paid $10 to use a machine publish lot. You can’t trust the little lots which take your keys and move your car to make more room.

The temperature was heading for 33 degrees Celcius, the hottest day of the year. The sun was already hammering down at 10:30am but there was a glare, a haziness to the sky, that made it seem more oppressive as we walked down the road. I noticed multiple “haunted houses”, games arcades, a Ripleys Believe Or Not, Hard Rock Cafe, Tim Hortons, various food shops, a ferris wheel, two putt putt golf establishments and roads without any indication of when you should stop or walk. Vehicles were given right of way, much to my confusion.

We browsed a fudge shop before hitting an arcade (5 coins were given to us free, courtesy of a multipass that got you into several attractions). The usual suspects were present - alligator whack, Cyclone, The Lost World shooting game, car races, etc. It was fun, using the tokens, but I hoped we would soon go to the Falls, before the heat really set in.

My fiancé’s friends took us on a vacant path heading towards the “Canadian Falls” first, avoiding the busy crowded path that offered a view of the “American Falls”. The Falls are on different sides of the border. The strange Skylon Tower soared overhead, yellow lifts dodging up and down continually. A fat squirrel, so large it resembled a possum, was inspecting the grass for food. One of my fiancé’s friends bent down, pretending to offer food, and it made a beeline for her.

A well-fed specimen.

We crossed back over the road to take in the Canadian side. This required braving intersections without traffic lights, though they were people on duty juggling the pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The Horseshoe Falls (the more popular name for the Canadian Falls) were beautiful, underpinned by the roar of water. We were hit with a constant spray - a large mist was rising over the Falls, obscuring it and making my camera freak out as it tried to focus. I changed to the telescopic lens verrry carefully!

Focus this!

As we went closer, we countered an absurdly popular Tesla statue. My fiancé’s friends told us how Tesla put turbines under the Falls to provide a staggering amount of electricity. Quite an achievement, especially for those times!

Tesla being a little bit sassy.

After buying goodies (including Ice Wine chocolates - ice wine is a Canadian speciality and tends towards the taste of spirits; I found the chocolates quite sweet) we found ourselves closer still. Took an obligatory kissing selfie with my fiancé - the Falls are not quite as romantic as one thinks, but the photos you take are gorgeous, if you don’t get other tourists in them!!

The Horseshoe Falls

I noticed boats going right up to the Falls - people were getting drenched! Each side of the border sent a boat - red ponchos for Canada, blue for the US - the people filling the top deck revealed the boats’ origins.

We used a cliff railway to get up to a lunch area before walking down to ogle the American Falls - not as dramatic. The Canadian Falls are over a “corner”, providing better shots. Still, it was an awing sight. So too was the Rainbow Bridge. As we left the Falls, we overheard someone say loudly “I hate Niagara Falls in summer!” which we all thought was funny.

The American Falls

We used our multipass to enter a wax attraction full of badly mimicked actors. Miley Cyrus still had long hair and everyone looked very “off”. Brendar Fraser from The Mummy shared space with a dinosaur which was confusing/amusing.

Next, back to the arcade for a 6D (??) ride where you wear 3D glasses and your seat moves. We enjoyed this because the kids in the front row kept screaming. Then we went on a ghost ride which was like a rail haunted house, except you lasered small targets. After this we sat in the large ferris wheel (the air-con leaked in our pod) which had excellent views of both Falls and was beside a putt putt course which had an erupting volcano.

Lastly, after a Tim Hortons break, it was time for putt putt. This one was in a basement beneath fluorescent lighting. I abstained; it was fun to watch! The day had cleared by now but we were leaving.

We were driven back to Hamilton after dinner. I noticed that a lot of the houses we passed were tiny, but my fiancé’s friend told me that lot of them would have big basements. This is because in Canada the frost goes down four feet and if your foundations aren’t deeper, they can shift.

 “I guess if they go down four they figure they might as well dig eight and make a room,” my fiancé’s other friend said.

We were left to our own devices yet again.

Soooo tired.

Day 6: Hamilton

Writing this the next day as exhaustion and a late night is not conducive to legible handwriting. We woke too early, fuelled by afternoon jetlagged dozing and staggered downstairs. We left all our coins and some $1 notes for housekeeping - sadly not from the goodness of our hearts, but to get rid of them. We breached the doors of our hotel at 5:15am. Our “luxury sedan” with its giant freaking boot awaited, along with our female driver who was courteous and efficient.

We took off through the waking streets of New York. The muted sunrise seemed lit from nowhere, the buildings hiding the source. As we continued to JFK, we passed two cemeteries that seemed populated by more than the people in NYC. The sun made its appearance as a large orange ball on the horizon.

Terminal 8, our destination, housed American Airlines. It was bedlam. Our driver stopped the car in a driving lane because the “kiss and ride” section was already two cars deep. Our driver was meticulous in checking we’d left nothing behind, especially me. Ha! Once inside we floundered around until finding the check in machines which spat out two boarding passes but didn’t give us bag tags or the option to buy them - we had to go to a manned counter to rectify this.

We suffered through the same crazy screening yet again - shoes off, etc. No water was allowed but the security officer simply leered at my “baggy” of 100ml beauty products before returning them. We made it through and I ate a flavourless turkey wrap - we have found that food in NYC is not as tasty. Not sure why?

We had to hike to our gate and flash passports to “check in” there. Then it was time to leave for Toronto. Families with the usual 2 pieces of hand luggage (mini-suitcases) were pulled aside to have their bags taken and tagged for the hold.

That should have warned me - or the small seating map when I chose our seats! We were waved through with our small pieces. I had to duck to enter the plane. I found myself in a very claustrophobic passage which divided one seat from two. I could have lain across the plane, neck bent, it was so narrow. And the hand luggage shelf was so tiny that while my backpack fit, my fiancé had to squeeze his laptop bag under the seat in front of him.

Only one toilet at the back - a fight over that ensued later. Members of the Chile Pan Am team joined us and became quite noisy (the Pan Am Games are on in Toronto). The take off was surprisingly smooth for a small craft. We were each allowed a small cup of whatever liquid served by the flight attendant. He was a cheerful veteran of the air who said he knew body language so I must be very thirsty. He gave me a second cup of water!

We saw Toronto as we came in an hour later. I gripped my fiancé’s hand, anticipating a bumpy landing.

“You really don’t like small planes, do you?” he mused.

The landing was better than expected. As we arrived, we were sternly told that we now subject to Canadian laws so phones could not be used until we cleared customs - most Americans flouted this around us as we joined the customs queue. The staff were overwhelmed, the Pan Am Games delivering far more passengers than they were used to. But Canadians are efficient and got us through in a quarter of the time US customs ever could.

We snagged a taxi and headed for Hamilton, 35-60 minutes away according to our driver. I was amused to see the numberplate HOCKEYEH ahead of us. We hit epic traffic that even bamboozled our driver. The Games were to blame. 75 minutes later, we were at our hotel, sweating in the heat. The room is nice, though the curtains caused confusion and it took us 18 hours to solve the riddle of closing them.

We wandered down the main street of Hamilton, checking out shops, statues and the screen that had been set up for locals to watch the Games. I bought Canadian-made knickknacks for friends and browsed Out of the Past, a vintage shop. The only size 6 shoes I could find were vintage tiny “galloshes” that I could not justify buying.

Returned to the hotel and valiantly stayed awake - somehow.

7:30pm arrived which saw us waiting for my fiancé’s friends outside in the cooling evening. We were taken to an excellent burger place. Here you picked the burger, the patty, the side and the bun. I had an elk patty which is so much nicer than beef and is…delicate? Hard to describe. My fiancé’s friends introduced us to poutine, which is cheese curds and gravy on chips. Tastes like potatoes in French onion soup. Bleh.

We explored Hamilton extensively on foot before enjoying ice cream. We saw a whole bunch of school buses that looked like a pile of yellow caterpillars in a parking lot. There were a lot of them driving around as well. My fiancé’s friends say that in summer, when they aren’t being used, the yellow buses are hired out for charter. They surmised that the buses were being used for the Pan Am Games, as the soccer stadium was nearby.

I was tired and my feet hurt, but seeing the train station from the movie X-Men (“the one Cyclops shoots up” to quote my fiancé’s friend) was awesome! Seeing it at night made it look just like it does in the movie! It now holds formal functions.

Many old decrepit buildings in Hamilton are either refurbed or being refurbed after lying abandoned for years, though one made a good set for the movie Silent Hill. Many films set in the 1980s are done in Hamilton because they have authentic wooden telephone poles from the era - they are not replaced because they provide revenue in the form of films. Wooden poles very normal back home in Australia.

Staggered back to the hotel. Made plans to meet in morning to visit Niagara Falls.


PS: Lots of mobility scooters everywhere. My fiancé says it’s weird but Hamilton is very flat - handy for someone in a scooter.