Familial adventures.
Once again, this is long overdue. There are quite a few things I'd like to write about, and as this one happened first, it seems like a good place to start.
Two weeks ago, June 12-16, I went on the first trip I've ever been on with my family. Imagine that, at 21 years old. Anyway, the original plan was to go to New York on Thursday night, stay there till Saturday morning, then head to Niagara Falls, Ontario and stay there Saturday night, then come home Sunday morning. We also were planning on leaving my dad at home, since he was being a jerk and kept saying he didn't want to go. (The feeling was mutual.) Naturally, that isn't what happened.
Thursday morning, we all left, including my dad, who'd had a change of heart at midnight the night before. Too late, if you ask me, but my mom took him to get some decent clothes, and we all left in the morning. Trips in the car with my dad are indescribably boring, since he won't let anyone turn on the radio. For six hours. :| Luckily my sister and I had our iPods and I brought a sudoku book, but my mom was bored to death. We left at noon and it was only supposed to take three and a half/four hours to get there, but we stopped to pee a hundred times, and we took a wrong turn at one point, so it ended up being six hours of driving. Luckily we didn't have a whole lot of stuff to do that night, just the wedding party rehearsal dinner, which we went to, and felt slightly out of place, since none of our family was there (with the exception of my cousin and his parents, my mom's brother and sister-in-law, but obviously they had lots of other people to talk to). It was ok though... I got some pierogies out of the deal, so I won't complain.
The following day was the wedding. My mom thought we should all get up at three in the morning to go sight-seeing before the wedding, which was in the late afternoon, but that didn't happen... besides, what is there to do at that hour?? She ended up going with my uncle to pick up stuff for the wedding and leaving the rest of us to sleep (until nine, we're so lazy. /sarcasm ) When she came back, we went out for lunch, then came back to get dressed and stuff. The actual wedding was pretty nice. Bobby (my cousin) seemed fine, but Angela (his wife) sobbed. I've seen her six times, I think, and she's cried at least four of those. Seriously. :P
Here's where the problem began. The wedding party was supposed to go to Niagara Falls (the church was actually in the city of Niagara Falls, NY) on the American side to get some pictures between the wedding and the reception. We hadn't seen the Falls yet, so we decided we would go ahead of the wedding party and meet them there, then follow them back to the reception. My mom's friend Kenny told us that the Falls were three blocks from where we were, and they were... but we took a wrong turn (and my Nana, her boyfriend, my aunt Stacey and her husband were all in one car following us...) and ended up on the Rainbow Bridge to Canada. And once you make that turn, there's no way to turn around. >.< We talked to Canadian customs, and they said we had to cross the bridge, but we could make a series of right turns and end up back on the bridge... Well, that didn't happen. At all. We ended up lost in Canada for an hour and a half. And we lost my Nana and everyone else in the process. We drove around in circles forever, and kept asking people (who all seemed to be as clueless as we were), but we finally found the bridge back... at which point we had to sit in line for the US customs for 45 minutes. :| And when it was finally our turn, they didn't want to let us back in because we didn't have very good ID. He kept yelling at us for coming over without our ID, no matter how many times we tried to explain that we had never even meant to come over, and that we just wanted to get back to a wedding reception that we were already close to being late for.
He finally let us go, so we started driving toward the reception... or so we hoped... but it turned out that the customs guy hadn't given us very good directions, and we ended up on a highway going towards Buffalo. So we turned around and drove aimlessly for a while. At this point everyone was pissed off and stressed, so we started screaming at each other, like we always do, till my dad had my mom and sister crying. Fun. We did finally manage to get back to Niagara Falls, and I was sure we were going the right way, but my dad started screaming again so my mom stopped to talk to a cop, and he told us that we were right. So we drove back to Lockport, where our hotel and the reception were, and everything was ok till we got to Lockport, because we followed the directions to the reception exactly and we couldn't find it. We ended up calling my uncle, and Kenny, and my nana and everyone else in the world, and apparently t-mobile has terrible service there because I kept losing everyone. We drove around for like half an hour, and my mom was ready to turn back and go to the hotel and ask the receptionist, when we found a Sunoco and went in and asked for directions... and it turned out the reception was right beside the gas station. :P So we got there, but two hours late. The worst part is, I guess they waited for us for a long time before they started, and my aunt was upset. :(
The next morning, we decided to explore Lockport before we went to Canada, and that was fun. We went to look at the locks, and a boat when by when we were down there... and my nana and aunt and everyone else were on it. What are the chances of that happening? lol. So we all waved at each other and took pictures and stuff, then we went to check out the lock museum, which was dumb. After that, we went to the Lockport Cave, which was really cool. It was a man-made cave, but it was still awesome, and there was a boat ride and stuff.
After that, we drove to Niagara Falls, NY. We decided we would look at the Falls from the American side before we went to Canada. At the time, they seemed really cool... until we saw the Canada side. :P The only thing that bothered me was that you had to go through like fifteen souvenir shops... it almost seemed like they were hiding the Falls.
After that, we went to Canada, this time intentionally. Since it was getting late, we decided to find our hotel right away, which was surprisingly simple. We checked in and dropped off some junk, then went to the Falls in the dark to see them lit up. It was really pretty, but none of my pictures came out. :( Also, there were about a billion mayflies, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I could. After that, we had dinner... at Little Caesar's. How adventurous of us. (At this point, we had eaten at Taco Bell, Arby's, Burger King, and Little Caesar's. lol)
The next day, the plan was originally to do a little sight-seeing and then start going home, but we decided we wouldn't have time to see much, and my mom would be too tired to drive home, so we decided to stay another night. We all got bus passes and went down to the Falls, which were awesome in the daylight. We also did a bunch of touristy things... We went to the Criminals Hall of Fame wax museum (it was really cool, but maybe only because I have this morbid fascination/idolization of criminals going on...), and we were gonna go to an IMAX theatre, but it was closed. :( We went to the top of the Skylon tower for a while (it was really cool, but my dad is afraid of heights, more than I am, so he was kind of annoying). Then we got adventure passes and did a bunch of wet stuff. Like the Maid of the Mist (awesome, but I got drenched), the Journey Behind the Falls (we got wet again), and the White Water Walk (it was a path that went really close to the rapids... pretty cool). When you list all of the stuff we did like that, it doesn't seem like much, but it took up the whole day. :P When it started getting later, we took my dad to Planet Hollywood for Father's Day. Which was delicious. It started raining while we were in there though, which messed up our plans to see the fireworks. Instead, we waited for the bus to pick us up in the downpour, and it finally did, after a while... and the lady was nice, and stopped the bus so we could see the fireworks from inside. They were awesome... I wish I could have seen them over the Falls. Oh well.
The next morning, we didn't do any sight-seeing, we just went home. It was a lot easier going back, because mapquest had us go through Buffalo instead of Lockport, and it was faster and not as complicated. It started monsooning again when we got close to Williamsport, and we actually had to drive through a bunch of mud slides. D: Nothing bad happened though... we all made it home in one piece.
Ok, so that was pretty long... There are a few other things I need to blog about, but they'll wait. :)
Two weeks ago, June 12-16, I went on the first trip I've ever been on with my family. Imagine that, at 21 years old. Anyway, the original plan was to go to New York on Thursday night, stay there till Saturday morning, then head to Niagara Falls, Ontario and stay there Saturday night, then come home Sunday morning. We also were planning on leaving my dad at home, since he was being a jerk and kept saying he didn't want to go. (The feeling was mutual.) Naturally, that isn't what happened.
Thursday morning, we all left, including my dad, who'd had a change of heart at midnight the night before. Too late, if you ask me, but my mom took him to get some decent clothes, and we all left in the morning. Trips in the car with my dad are indescribably boring, since he won't let anyone turn on the radio. For six hours. :| Luckily my sister and I had our iPods and I brought a sudoku book, but my mom was bored to death. We left at noon and it was only supposed to take three and a half/four hours to get there, but we stopped to pee a hundred times, and we took a wrong turn at one point, so it ended up being six hours of driving. Luckily we didn't have a whole lot of stuff to do that night, just the wedding party rehearsal dinner, which we went to, and felt slightly out of place, since none of our family was there (with the exception of my cousin and his parents, my mom's brother and sister-in-law, but obviously they had lots of other people to talk to). It was ok though... I got some pierogies out of the deal, so I won't complain.
The following day was the wedding. My mom thought we should all get up at three in the morning to go sight-seeing before the wedding, which was in the late afternoon, but that didn't happen... besides, what is there to do at that hour?? She ended up going with my uncle to pick up stuff for the wedding and leaving the rest of us to sleep (until nine, we're so lazy. /sarcasm ) When she came back, we went out for lunch, then came back to get dressed and stuff. The actual wedding was pretty nice. Bobby (my cousin) seemed fine, but Angela (his wife) sobbed. I've seen her six times, I think, and she's cried at least four of those. Seriously. :P
Here's where the problem began. The wedding party was supposed to go to Niagara Falls (the church was actually in the city of Niagara Falls, NY) on the American side to get some pictures between the wedding and the reception. We hadn't seen the Falls yet, so we decided we would go ahead of the wedding party and meet them there, then follow them back to the reception. My mom's friend Kenny told us that the Falls were three blocks from where we were, and they were... but we took a wrong turn (and my Nana, her boyfriend, my aunt Stacey and her husband were all in one car following us...) and ended up on the Rainbow Bridge to Canada. And once you make that turn, there's no way to turn around. >.< We talked to Canadian customs, and they said we had to cross the bridge, but we could make a series of right turns and end up back on the bridge... Well, that didn't happen. At all. We ended up lost in Canada for an hour and a half. And we lost my Nana and everyone else in the process. We drove around in circles forever, and kept asking people (who all seemed to be as clueless as we were), but we finally found the bridge back... at which point we had to sit in line for the US customs for 45 minutes. :| And when it was finally our turn, they didn't want to let us back in because we didn't have very good ID. He kept yelling at us for coming over without our ID, no matter how many times we tried to explain that we had never even meant to come over, and that we just wanted to get back to a wedding reception that we were already close to being late for.
He finally let us go, so we started driving toward the reception... or so we hoped... but it turned out that the customs guy hadn't given us very good directions, and we ended up on a highway going towards Buffalo. So we turned around and drove aimlessly for a while. At this point everyone was pissed off and stressed, so we started screaming at each other, like we always do, till my dad had my mom and sister crying. Fun. We did finally manage to get back to Niagara Falls, and I was sure we were going the right way, but my dad started screaming again so my mom stopped to talk to a cop, and he told us that we were right. So we drove back to Lockport, where our hotel and the reception were, and everything was ok till we got to Lockport, because we followed the directions to the reception exactly and we couldn't find it. We ended up calling my uncle, and Kenny, and my nana and everyone else in the world, and apparently t-mobile has terrible service there because I kept losing everyone. We drove around for like half an hour, and my mom was ready to turn back and go to the hotel and ask the receptionist, when we found a Sunoco and went in and asked for directions... and it turned out the reception was right beside the gas station. :P So we got there, but two hours late. The worst part is, I guess they waited for us for a long time before they started, and my aunt was upset. :(
The next morning, we decided to explore Lockport before we went to Canada, and that was fun. We went to look at the locks, and a boat when by when we were down there... and my nana and aunt and everyone else were on it. What are the chances of that happening? lol. So we all waved at each other and took pictures and stuff, then we went to check out the lock museum, which was dumb. After that, we went to the Lockport Cave, which was really cool. It was a man-made cave, but it was still awesome, and there was a boat ride and stuff.
After that, we drove to Niagara Falls, NY. We decided we would look at the Falls from the American side before we went to Canada. At the time, they seemed really cool... until we saw the Canada side. :P The only thing that bothered me was that you had to go through like fifteen souvenir shops... it almost seemed like they were hiding the Falls.
After that, we went to Canada, this time intentionally. Since it was getting late, we decided to find our hotel right away, which was surprisingly simple. We checked in and dropped off some junk, then went to the Falls in the dark to see them lit up. It was really pretty, but none of my pictures came out. :( Also, there were about a billion mayflies, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I could. After that, we had dinner... at Little Caesar's. How adventurous of us. (At this point, we had eaten at Taco Bell, Arby's, Burger King, and Little Caesar's. lol)
The next day, the plan was originally to do a little sight-seeing and then start going home, but we decided we wouldn't have time to see much, and my mom would be too tired to drive home, so we decided to stay another night. We all got bus passes and went down to the Falls, which were awesome in the daylight. We also did a bunch of touristy things... We went to the Criminals Hall of Fame wax museum (it was really cool, but maybe only because I have this morbid fascination/idolization of criminals going on...), and we were gonna go to an IMAX theatre, but it was closed. :( We went to the top of the Skylon tower for a while (it was really cool, but my dad is afraid of heights, more than I am, so he was kind of annoying). Then we got adventure passes and did a bunch of wet stuff. Like the Maid of the Mist (awesome, but I got drenched), the Journey Behind the Falls (we got wet again), and the White Water Walk (it was a path that went really close to the rapids... pretty cool). When you list all of the stuff we did like that, it doesn't seem like much, but it took up the whole day. :P When it started getting later, we took my dad to Planet Hollywood for Father's Day. Which was delicious. It started raining while we were in there though, which messed up our plans to see the fireworks. Instead, we waited for the bus to pick us up in the downpour, and it finally did, after a while... and the lady was nice, and stopped the bus so we could see the fireworks from inside. They were awesome... I wish I could have seen them over the Falls. Oh well.
The next morning, we didn't do any sight-seeing, we just went home. It was a lot easier going back, because mapquest had us go through Buffalo instead of Lockport, and it was faster and not as complicated. It started monsooning again when we got close to Williamsport, and we actually had to drive through a bunch of mud slides. D: Nothing bad happened though... we all made it home in one piece.
Ok, so that was pretty long... There are a few other things I need to blog about, but they'll wait. :)