The reason I haven't blogged in quite a few days (for me, at least) is because I was with my friends up in Niagara Falls, New York for about 3 days. They took me up on their family trip because being the theater geek that I am, they thought I'd enjoy seeing my friend's older sister in The Sound of Music. But before I get to that, while up there, I noticed that I am now kinda the poster child for the AFS blog page!
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Remember that post? I guess they actually find me interesting!
Okay, back to the travel journey. On Thursday night, my mom took me to their house. Scratch that, their friend's house where they were having dinner a few streets/cornfields over. I also ate 3 dinners that night, when originally I intended on eating only the sandwich I prepared earlier that day for a 2 o'clock lunch. After the adults drank a little and Katie (not the one going to Italy with me...I'm friends with like, 5 different girls named Katie. It leads to really confusing conversations. But I digress.) and I were on our 3 round of orange juices, we went home to watch our odd movies. We slept in her basement and watched a movie called Shakespeare in Love, which is probably one of my favorites now. If you have interest in Shakespeare or any bit at all in Romeo and Juliet, watch this movie!
Friday we left around noon after eating a fantasmic omelet Katie's older sister prepared for me, we hit the road. I finished knitting my new favorite scarf on the way up, that is a British brand produced in Italy! It's like my heart and soul in one scarf! It's also the colors of the Union Jack. Wee! Anyways, we watched Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (oddly funny in a weird, late-80's movie way) and the 10th anniversary of Les Miserables. If your only exposure to Les Miserables is through the 2012 remake with Anne Hathaway and Russell Crowe and so on, you're missing out. This was the dream cast, where the best of the best from all around the world were on one stage just performing the songs from the musical. It's much better than the 2012 version (sorry, theater snob breaking out here), plus my girl Lea Solonga is Eponine. If you don't know who Lea Solonga is, I pity you. Just kidding. She's the voice of Mulan and Jasmine (Aladdin), also playing Miss Saigon, Eponine, and Fontine in Les Miserables. I'm pretty sure she's also the secret identity of Wonder Woman.
Sorry, sorry, sorry, my crazy obsessive theater child sprung out of it's shell. We got to our hotel late Friday, but not late enough to keep us from getting dinner at Red Robin and getting ice cream sundae material from Walgreen's. So we went back to our hotel and made sundaes and watched some James Bond movie that BBC America was airing at the time (at least we think it was James Bond, we didn't really know what we were watching).
On Saturday, we dressed up nicely and went out to breakfast with all of us and Katie's older sister who was Maria in The Sound of Music. The restaurant was very cute, and it got me all excited because it was called "Mangia", which is the 3rd person singular term for "eat" in Italian. It turned out that the restaurant had nothing to do with Italian culture and it just had a clever name, so my excitement was lowered. Not until I saw the menu. I'm pretty sure we all got pancakes of some sort, but these pancakes were phenomenal. I had banana walnut pancakes with huge hunks of banana and walnut in them. They weren't skimpy with their ingredients. Katie and I also shared a side of home fries, which were equally savory and tasty.
After breakfast, Katie's one older sister had to go for her call time, so we went to look around at a few shops down the block. I sadly didn't have my wallet, but I don't think I would have bought anything anyways. So then we went to see her musical. If you aren't familiar with The Sound of Music, it takes place in Austria in the late 1930's (1938 to be exact) where a girl named Maria (who is "training" to be a Nun) is kicked out of the Abbey for a few months to be the nanny for 7 kids of a Navy captain. Long story short, a lot of musical numbers happen and then Maria becomes the children's new stepmother, afterwards they all flee Austria after it has been taken over by the Nazis. The show was absolutely fantastic, and afterwards we went out to eat (starting to see a pattern?). I don't know the name of the restaurant, but I do know that it was right on the waterfront and across the river was Canada.
This photo wasn't posed or anything...(; It's me looking at Canada.
Canada with the sun on the water. In real life, you'd be blinded like I was trying to take a picture of the sun on the water.
Dinner at this restaurant was slow but very tasty, as I was choosing what I wanted to eat I went from petite salad to huge sandwich because of hunger. Kara hungry! Kara want meat!
That night, Katie's mom and two older sisters went across the border to Niagara Falls, Canada just for funzies. Katie, her dad and I went home and made chocolate chip cookies in a skillet and watched Food Network til I eventually fell asleep. When I woke up from my slumber, she presented us with little keychains she had gotten from the other side of the border. Painting a picture with my words, it is a beaver with a red Canada sweater on that is now on my suitcase. I will probably keep it on for Italy, so TSA, don't you even think about taking it away.
The last day we ate breakfast at Mangia again, where I had a spinach and feta omelet that was just as delectable as the pancakes from the previous morning. This day, we ate with the guy who played the beautiful Rolf (or however it's spelled, the kid who delivered telegrams and Liesl fell in love with) and his family. We spent probably well over 2 hours just talking over our breakfast, and then we went browsing the shops again. This time, we wandered into a little olive oil shop. This shop was a dream for anyone who finds themselves again and again at Carabba's ordering loaf after loaf of bread to dip in olive oil. You could taste test different flavors of oils from around the world with little strips of bread. The little woman running the shop kept on telling me to try different flavors of oils, and I happily agreed to. Everything from 5 different garlic flavors, butter, truffle, herb, chipoltle, all things like that. I came really close to buying a bottle, but didn't see much point in it because when would I use it?
We headed off home, but not before one last stop.
Niagara freakin' Falls.
I thought it would be a very short stop and we'd just look at it from afar, but we did the whole shebang! We took the Maid of the Mist boat tour with the silly ponchos. Maid of the Mist has been around since 1846, which is actually quite terrifying to think about. Nearly 20 years before the American Civil War and people were going out in boats to one of the world's biggest waterfalls. They're scary enough to look at in 2013! It was just one of those things that were pretty terrifying, but you couldn't help but to take a billion pictures in awe. And get soaked at the same time.
"Woah, I can't believe we're this close! WOAH, I CAN'T BELIEVE WE'RE THIS CLOSE."
Katie and I!
One of the Canadian boats carrying Canadians. They're wearing the exact same ponchos on identical boats! We waved them as they passed by us.
The US falls.
The whole shebang.
Probably my favorite picture from the trip!
Canadian boat underneath the observation deck.
Rainbow Bridge, the road used to cross the border!
The Blue Poncho Brigade.
Me!
So I guess you could say this was a successful weekend. Stocked up on postcards, basically crossed the border, watched a full season of Canadian telly, made cookies in a skillet pan, went to Niagara Falls and saw Canada for the first time, and ate half a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese. Life is good!
T MINUS 50 DAYS, MUCHACHOS.
Arrivederci!
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