Niagara Falls Usa..song of the day : 'the long and winding road ..'
Niagara Falls Travel Blog
› entry 6 of 10 › view all entries
I have rented a 'small economy' car from a place in Catskill ; New York state , it is actually a pretty big Chevvy , like a lot of american cars are , also it is an automatic and i have not driven an automatic for 20 years. As i walk out of the rental place to the car a song comes on the radio that is playing in thier office ; 'the long and winding road ..'
It would not go into drive and i suffered the humiliation of having to go back inside the rental place and he explained you have to have your foot on the brake to be able to engage drive :-(
They do not drive on the right (correct ) side of the road over here , but still , the roads are FAR less busy than what we have to put up with in the UK .
There are service stations every 20 miles or so which have junk food and also 'good' food outlets .The petrol(gas) stations have an option to pay by credit card , but what i did was to go into the kiosk , tell them that i wanted $40 of unleaded on pump 2 , pay , and then go and pour it in , the pump cuts out at $40.
The driving is laid back and courteous , everyone gives everyone else a bit of space , only a few were going any faster than 75 , the car was comfortable and i found that it had cruise control and used it .The 'gas' (petrol) cost $4.10 per gallon (4.5 litres) and the people here are bellyaching about it . In the Uk with our miserable 'new labour' government we are paying double the US charge , my car runs on deisil and i pay Eleven dollars per gallon.
Niagara was 350 miles , i had arranged thru a friend of a friend to get cheap motel accom and found it with a lot of difficulty on Buffalo avenue niagara falls , i am not good at following road directions and to be honest , i could not understand all of the verbal directions i was given by the otherwise helpful people i asked . More on that later .
I got the motel for two nights at $35 per night because of my friendly contact , it would have been $50 to anyone else and probably more for sat/sun.It was pretty basic , 1 room , a small attached toilet and bath/shower , a small microwave and a fridge a few cupboards , a table and a tv with cable .Motels are everywhere and usually advertised by signposts before the motorway exits .It suited me fine , i drive 3 miles into town , along the Niagara river and parkup next to the red coach bar and walk over to the falls which are floodlit .
but with vast unused open spaces around them .I could nt find Internet anywhere , except wireless access and i dont have a laptop.
I asked someone and he said that Starbucks probably have it and i go in there for a coffee , when i ask the guy , he says ;'we have 3 way os' and seemed to nod in the direction of some seats by a wall , when i asked him to repeat he said the same again , i looked and there were no pcs only seats , goodness knows what he meant , i still dont .The coffee was lousy anyway , too strong and sour (americano) so i left after having only drunk half a cup.
For readers of this blog who do not speak english as a first language , it is better for me to explain that it is rightly said of the Americans and English that they are ' divided by a common language' .
now far too late .I used to have an american girlfriend and also have long lost relatives somewhere in san diego and have been used to talking over the phone to people in the states , i can imagine the problems the french/spanish/germans etc must have in finding an understanding here.


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