Day trip to Niagara Falls

       Today I just had and amazing trip: I went to the Niagara Falls, on the Canadian/USA border! ...this was one of the reasons I came to Toronto. Just a two hour Greyhound ride from T.O. allowed me to enjoy a sunny afternoon contemplating tons of water falling 54m deep and sounding like thunder. Yes, it was impressive. I loved it and I am defenetly coming back, but preferable in summer ;) I had enough time to watch a documentary at an IMAX theatre about the Falls, visit an exhibition and go up the Skylon tower to have a view above Canada and the States. Kind of random was the actual City (or however you want to call it) of Niagara, with all those Hotels and Casinos it looked more like a small and cheap version of Las Vegas. And then everything was half death, but I guess that was because of low season. Anyways, here are some pictures I want to share: 

Sunday in T.O.

          That's why it's called Sunday, because the sun comes out! Today was actually the first day I had sun in Toronto. Unfortunately I am feeling a little bit sick, but I still didn't want to stay in the Hotel, so I went out to see Casa Loma, in the north of the city. Later this evening I checked out at what time the sunset would be and I went to CN Tower to contemplate it. Expensive admission but spectacular view!

TORONTO! First day.

     Today was my first (complete) day in Toronto. I didn't get up that early, I actually missed breakfast. But it didn't matter, I just went to the York Deli and had a sandwich and some soup at noon there. After that I went to the Aquario, one of the biggest Canada's. Right across the road I continued with a Brewery Tour through the Steam Whistle Brewery, it was a Sixpack tour, so I basically got a Sixpack of beer after the tour ;) I left it at my hotel room (Fairmont Royal York) and I took the subway to Museum Station where I visited the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). That museum is pretty big, and it has Dinosaurs, Asian Art, European and Canadian History, animal life in crisis... It took me a while getting through all that, it was pretty interesting though! In the evening I took a walk through Kensington Market where I found an "Arepera" ...time for some break! (Honestly, felt like home eating Arepas). I ended up at Dundas Square where I watched a Hockey game on a big screen.

Ice Climbing

          Another winter activity which I was wishing to do finally came true: Ice climbing. Good that we did it now as the season for it is going to be over in a couple of weeks! At 8am we left Lake Louise and we drove in a van to Canmore, a little bit more than one hour down the Trans Canadian Highway. Once there we got our equipment, ice climbing boots, spikes, helmet, harness and tools, and then we drove near Spray Lake where we had to walk a little bit inside the forest. There we practiced different ice climbing techniques (basically how to walk with the spikes on our boots) before learning how to use the tools at the ice wall, which was kind of a struggle because of the flying ice chunks (that was one of the reasons I decided to use my ski goggles). So after learning all that we finally were able to go on the frozen waterfall and climb it! Everyone of us seven did great, it was an awesome experience, I did it three times getting till the 25 meter high top two times! Around 6pm we were back home, as we obviously had to stop at Tim Hortons to get some food ;)

 

Dog Sledding

         Is it possible to go on the ski hill, do dog sledding and go for a hike on the same day? ...and all that  after St. Patricks Day? ...sounds like a challenge. Well it's doable, you just need good company for it ;) so the main plan of the day was going for dog sledding, which was amazing, so cozy sitting in that sled pulled through a winter wonderland by seven dogs. The actual half an hour ride felt like five minutes which was kind of sad, but it was completely worth it! 

         After that, me and Rosa went for a little walk to the lake and decided to go to the Fairview Lookout as the weather was perfect! After another half an hour struggleing to get through the snow to the Lookout we finally got that nice view of the lake, the hotel and Bow valley. Pretty funny was that the Lookout wasn't really there anymore, well it was there but somewhere buried under a massive amount of snow as you will be able to see on the last picture.

         Today was fantastic, and such an active day!