Buffalo!!!

Well, here we are, Sunday night. Where did the time go?

Yesterday Hil and I made a visit south of the border, to the home of the Sabres and Bills, Buffalo NY. I'd ordered a bike from a shop down there (my treat to myself for a horrendously challenging 2005), and it'd arrived a few days earlier.

It's incredible how close TO is to the states. Only two hours drive on the ugly Queen Elizabeth W. highway and you're there. To shake things up a bit, we stopped at Niagara on the Lake... a tiny little touristy town, famous for its vineyards and Ontario wines, such as Inniskilling, and Jackson Briggs. Rather than taking in a wine tour, we poked about the main street and oddly enough, it reminded me a bit of the touristiness of Banff. (Some interesting colonial homes that must have been what houses looked like in 1812 when we learned the Yankees a lesson) The photo of Hil is her holding some styrofoam apples on a stick that she found on a bush. Weird.

With our legs stretched out, we hopped into the trusty Nissan and were in Buffalo a scant half hour later. Border crossing went smoothly and as we went over the Peace Bridge (which sure wasn't anything to write home about), we got promptly lost.

Lost is okay when you have gas in the tank, and a relative idea of where to go, so with that, we started see-sawing through the back streets, and lo and behold, saw a street name that we recognized.

Downtown Buffalo isn't all that big. Some taller multi story buildings, and some really neat looking old stuff - in that style of architecture reminiscent of the Empire States Building, or Gotham from the Batman comics. Interestingly, there's a lot of housing within their city center, small homes, that by and large, are pretty run down. Buffalo looks kinda repressed. The roads are beat, and the street lights dangle from cables, rather than proper cross bars.

Driving down their funky Elmwood Ave, we wound up at Campus Wheel Works - a fantastic bike shop run by some super nice guys. Walking into the store, the owner Seaghan spots me, "Are you Jeff Mah?"

"Yup!"

"Your bike's right here!"

And with that, down came my beauty of a bike - a Surly Cross Check... jet black, not very expensive, and perfect for ripping around Toronto. I took the bike out for a spin through the neighborhoods, and came back smiling. Perfect!

I chatted with the shop folks for a while longer, and presented them with a present from Canada - a six pack of Maudite, one of Quebec's finest beers! 8% proof! They were super happy, as was I.

Hil and I hung out a bit longer, and sat in a fantastic coffee shop across the street called Spot Coffee. It's joined with a pretty hip music shop too, and browsing through their T-shirts, you can tell that the university kids a) love Belle and Sebastian and b) hate George Bush. The coffee was being poured fast and furious and the shop had such a fantastic cross section of people. Sitting in a church pew, reading a local paper, we got a chance to hear the local accent. They really like to draw out their "ah" sounds. ie Spot coffee, would be pronounced Spaaaawwwt. Folks are bigger here too. Everyone has a belly and big thighs.

Eventually, we decided it was time to head back. As we headed to the border, I was wrestling with whether I should be honest and pay duty for the bike, or lie. A degree of honesty got the better of me, and while I'm a hundred bucks lighter in my wallet, my heart's lighter too. I remember my uncle telling me, "You can't go through life cheating the system all the time. Eventually, it catches up to you"

Hil supports me on this one, and besides, I guess my money goes to keeping Canada strong, and our roads in fine working condition. (Ironically, we had to pay a toll just 200 feet down the road - sigh.)

Along the way back, we stopped at Niagara Falls, hoping to get a peek at one of the natural wonders of the world. We were aghast. Niagara Falls is a cesspool of commercialism. Crappy, gaudy hotels much like those in Vegas abound, as well as schlockmonger stores dealing their silly schlocky souvenirs. See the ghastly photo below... Fifteen bucks to park to see the Falls? No thanks - we'll drive by.

With that, we went home. Wow - Niagara on the Lake, Buffalo, and the Falls, all in one day!

j