Hello everyone!

We are now in Toronto although at one stage we didn't think we were going to get here at all! We had a very long train journey from when we left Boston. We had a 5 hour journey to New York where we arrived at 2am and had to wait 5 hours until 7am for our connecting train to Toronto. We got on the train thinking it would be a smooth 12 hour journey - don't be silly - there was only a fire close to the track when we were not too far from the Canadian border so we were delayed for 3 hours while they decided what would be the next step!

That wasn't the end of the problem, oh no, because we were 3 hours late to arrive at the hostel 11pm instead of 8pm we had missed check in and we were stranded outside the hostel front door! Needless to say after 25 hours of travelling all we wanted to do was to go straight to bed! It wasn't all bad however because someone was staying at the hostel when we were outside and let us in and the guy that owns the place did turn up after about an hour of us waiting. Luckily he hadn't cancelled our reservations but he did give Matt's bed away!

Tuesday we had a wander round Toronto seeing the downtown area and having a couple of strongbows on the way! Yeah they have strongbow! We sat around with a couple of cans trying to play Canadian trivial pursuit unsucessfully- the Speak girls did however win with 2 pieces! We then headed out into Toronto where our quiet night out turned into a few more than planned which was not good for our trip to Niagara Falls today!

We had a trip planned for Niagara Falls today (Wednesday) and our 1st stop was a local vineyard, which after our few too many last night was the last place we wanted to be as we participated in wine tasting!! We battled through it and carried on our trip to the falls. We went on the Maid of the Mist tour which is a boat ride which takes you into the mist of the falls. It was very close to the falls. We then had a couple of hours to look round. (Jen L there was so much going on this time around - it was funny to think of it as all closed up when we were there last time!)

We were then taken to the whirlpool and the rapids before our final stop to the village of Niagara on the Lake. It was a lovely little village with an English shop that sold gravy and Frost dvds. You all must know how excited I (Liz) got about that and they had one series I don't own!!

We are heading up the CN tower later on tonight.

Thanks for all the messages and keep them coming. I want to hear about veggie Ant!!

Speak to you when we get to Chicago

Liz and Carol

xxx

ps Dad i'm missing your sunday roasts and really want roast beef and yorkshire puddings!