Sunday 28th September 2003 - Day 15/273 - Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, Canada to Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
Paul gave us a lift to Niagara Falls, Ontario Greyhound Terminal to catch the early (8.45) bus to Buffalo, NY. Unfortunately the bus was delayed by 45 minutes which put our forward connection to Cleveland in jeopardy. Buffalo is only 24 miles from Niagara Falls, but due to the border the journey is scheduled to take 45 minutes, but in actual fact takes near on 2 hours.
The journey took us down the Niagara River to Fort Erie and then accross the Peace Bridge and into America. From the Bridge we caught our first glimpse of Lake Erie. US immigration made us disembark, reclaim our baggage and gave everyone a good grilling about why you want to come to the US. Myself and Mx don't seem to get quite such a hard time, but that's due to 10 year US visas. The immigration really are a miserable bunch. I mean are they trained to have no personality, a please and thank you wouldn't go a miss either.
We made it to Buffalo, which is famous for nothing apart from being the setting for Bruce Almighty, late for our connection. We toyed with the idea of staying the night here, but it really didn't look up to accepting guests. We agreed on the 3 hour wait, in the terminal to catch the next bus to Cleveland. I took a quick walk around the town and there really was nothing or noone about. I suppose it was a Sunday though.
The journey to Cleveland, took us around the south coast of Lake Erie, stopping only once in Erie, Pensylvania. On this bus I encountered my first weirdo. Step up to the plate, the comedian in the orange cap whose only joke appeared to be. "I bet I can guess where you got your shoes"
"Where?"
"On your feet"
He had us rolling in the aisles.
Cleveland on first impressions was equally as quiet, but it was clean. The avenues were wide. There's no hostels in Cleveland so we found the cheapest hotel we could which happened to be the Holiday Inn on Lakeside avenue. My priorty Card did give us a few added benefits but it still cost $135 a night for a twin 2 double bed room. It was very nice though.
