Day 2 - June 17th

By Mariella

The second day began early, very early. Although most of us went to sleep not too late, the majority was exhausted. The committee had a trip planned to the Niagara Falls after the breakfast. There were different opinions about the breakfast: participants that had toast were not satisfied (some of them got an additional breakfast at the subway), participants that had pancakes were quite pleased.

After hauling again with the luggage to the mega-vans (the extended, the Henri-FM and the other one) and nice walkie-talkie talk we were leaving Toronto. The Henri-FM send their music on a free FM-band so the other vans could listen to their music and played 'raad de plaat' with the other van. When arrived at Niagara we could not yet check in at the Hi-Hostel so we had free time and lunch-money to have ourselves a nice morning. There was the possibility to go and see the Falls and the city. There was the most commercial street in Niagara with an amazing amount of haunted houses ever.

After having lunch and a lovely Starbucks cup of coffee we regrouped at the hostel and checked in. The hostel was old, small and extremely hot, but fine for staying one night. The whole group did the 'behind the falls-tour'. I personally thought that the Falls were less impressive than expected, but the view behind the Falls was wonderful, absolutely lovely. There was a great mystic show of water falling down and going up, coincidicing with each other. And if that was not enough water, we went on tour with the 'Maid of the Mist'. In (or better close to) to the Falls, but all the water around, beneath, above us, everywhere was an experience not to forget.

Impressed but exhausted we went back to the hostel and had time to fresh up for the trip to the casino where we would eat and gamble (with money we got of the committee :-) ). Everybody stylish dressed and after pictures of Arjen, looking a very cool bodyguard, were taken, the vans were started. The queue for the dinner was long, very long and because we were all very hungry it wasn't the best half hour of the day. But, when we were settled and got a look at the dinner, the whole waiting time was forgotten; there was an enormous amount of lovely delicious food. Enjoying the dinner we took a glance at the desert. That was even better! All kinds of cakes, fruit, pies and crumble made it so hard to choose that most of the participant had stomachache when going in the casino.

In the casino there were a lot of comparisons with the Holland Casino in Enschede: The zombies with an average age of over 50 sitting behind the automates. The big bet-in to have a seat at the black-jack and the poker table. The difference was that this casino had a dice-rolling-game. The sound was intriguing: the ‘pling’ of cashing that integrated to an amazing long 'pling', all the automates with their own sound interfering with the sound from its neighbor and the sound of the 'rikketikketik' of the automates with a handle.

The fireworks above the Niagara Falls that night were spotted by a part of the group but most of us at least took a glace of the illumination of the falls. When gathering at the vans and arriving at the hostel everybody went quickly to sleep in the overheated room to get a nice night of sleep to be well-rested for the first company-visit of the tour.