Walking to America for hot chocolate

Sometimes I love being in Canada. There are things you can do here that are not possible in England. For instance, last month the kids and I and some friends visited Niagara Falls to become deafened in a large indoor water park for two days. (Okay, that you can do in England. But wait.) When the fun finally palled and our hearing had begun to return, we ventured out the door of the hotel/park complex and saw the gleaming, snowy banks of the U.S. of A. across the narrow Niagara River, with the charmingly named Rainbow Bridge providing a connection. We could walk it. And, armed with passports, we did. But first we had to pass through a turnstile costing 50 cents per person. One of our group, who shall be nameless but is a teenager, decided that leaping over the barrier would be both economical and entertaining. Out from behind a mirrored door came a severe voice reprimanding said teenager and threatening deportation. Well, not exactly, but the voice's owner was seriously displeased.

A short walk commemorated by a lot of cellphone snapshots brought us to the American side of the falls. US passport control welcomed the kids and me with smiles and warmth. They were less friendly to our companions, traveling on Canadian passports.

It also seemed to be a lot colder now that we were in the north. Not much in the way of shelter or commerce beckoned at that time of year but as luck would have it, we found a Hard Rock Cafe perched on the perilous shore, and we tumbled gratefully in to consume hot chocolates with lots of cheap American cream. Yum. Then back out into frigid air, across the bridge, into southern Canada, where the weather seemed warmer but the the border guards cooler, at least to me and my kids. We endured a series of suspicious questions about our right and reason to enter the country. They let us in, finally, clearly unimpressed with our yen to walk to my homeland for no better reason than to say we had done so. And of course for the hot chocolate.



PS Youngest child, a girl, commented that for the second year in a row we went to the water park without her father. Her father hates such places with a passion, so the timing was in fact both not coincidental, and in his favor (he was in Portugal at the time). Daughter looked at her 2 elder brothers and said 'I feel sorry for you.' They asked why. 'Because when you grow up you'll be dads, and you will have to miss all the fun things.' I wonder if that counts as turning her into a feminist.