Niagara Falls - Chapter 1

Traveling with La Madre

I must have been drunk. I don't drink often but I must have been either drunk or feeling a bit too in love, because I actually agreed with my wife, Margherita' s idea for us to take my Italian mother-in-law on vacation for her birthday. Margherita's mother said she had to see Niagara Falls before she died so it seemed the best thing to do to help her move on.

We grabbed the first flight out of JFK on jetBlue and 50 minutes later we were to land in Buffalo. She was rather entertained by the in-seat television sets, which made things much easier as it limited my need to conduct a conversation.

Upon landing, we began the process of feeding, clothing, and bathing the woman. Okay, we didn't actually clothe or bathe her, but I learned the hard way-the bigger the group, the more often the need for rest stops. Men don't need to do such things as often. You can just sort of tie yourself in a knot until a better time for relief, but women aren't as blessed in this area.

After seven stops for rest, we arrived on the American side of Niagara Falls. The American side of the falls is basically a town connected to a national park. We decided to start our journey with the park.

After parking at the park (I just wanted to say it like that)- anyway after parking, we walked through the park a bit, where my little ol' Italian mother-in-law commented on the natural chicory that you can find growing there. Margherita got upset when I said, "I don't believe you. Eat it first, and prove it's chicory."

After avoiding the chicory incident, we headed straight towards the Cave of the Winds, which is no longer a cave but it sounds much better than "The area where the cave once was, so you're standing by a wall with lots of wind and getting wet at the same time."

Margherita found the cave rather entertaining, but her mother was left wondering why we would walk within five feet of the falls and get splattered. She asked in Italian, "What purpose does this serve?"

We left the Cave of the Winds, took off our ponchos and fake rubber shoes, and headed to the other side of Goat Island, which is the island where most of the American side's stuff is. Anyway, Margherita started lagging behind and I was left walking alone with my mother-in-law, La Madre. I call her La Madre as the third person article acknowledges her role, but keeps a healthy emotional distance.

Anyway, here is an actual transcript of our conversation while walking:

"Pretty trees," I said.

"Yes, pretty," she said.

"Pretty water," I said.

"Yes, pretty," she said.

After we exhausted the description of most of the inanimate objects she decided to run. I admit that I've put on a few pounds and I think this was her ulterior motive to get me to lose some weight. So now it was me, La Madre, and Margherita (twenty yards behind) running around Goat Island, while commenting on every noun in nature, and how pretty they were.

"Huff, huff, pretty water."

Maybe she was hoping that I'd run out of breath first.

We eventually arrived at Margherita's favorite part of Goat Island, the Three Sisters, referring to the name of the three little islands off Goat Island, and not relatives of La Madre. We sat there, laid down on some rocks, took some pictures, and La Madre said her daily prayers. It was a peaceful spot and quite appropriate for such things.

After running around a bit more, we finished with the American Side and tried to find a place to grab lunch. There are a few dozen buffet places and about half of them serve Indian food, which is a personal favorite of both Margherita and I.

La Madre isn't too thrilled with anything that's not Italian, except for Greek things. She still insists that Greece is part of Italy. She's only off by a millennium and a half.

We entered House of India Wearing the Crown Jewel of New Delhi While Walking with Vishnu, or something like that, as every Indian restaurant was literally next to each other and they seemed virtually indistinguishable to me. La Madre actually held up pretty well and tried everything even though, "It smells funny."

We finished lunch and decided to make a run for the border.

The security at the border is a bit frightening as it's almost non-existent. As long as you smile vigorously, you'll get by. To pass the border, I'm not sure if your identification needs to be more than a napkin with your name scribbled on it and the ability to grunt, "Hi."

The guard asked, "Do you have anything dangerous in the vehicle?"

I paused for dramatic effect and said, "My mother-in-law."

Needless to say, we crossed the border and headed right to the hotel, the Holiday Inn by the Falls. Every hotel mentions the falls in its name, which I think is written in the law of Niagara Falls as the thing for hotels to do-the Happy Hotel Near the Falls, the Motel Down the Street From the Falls, and the Place To Sleep Which Is Darn Close to the Falls.

After settling into the room, we decided to go see an Imax film as it was just across the street, behind their parking lot.

Lo and behold, the film was about Niagara Falls.

For most of the film, we translated what they were saying for La Madre and every so often you'd hear her exclaim, "Mamma Mia," when somebody went over the falls in a barrel. Yes, that part of my story isn't an exaggeration; she does say that quite frequently.

Every time she says it, I find it rather fun to quote the Queen song, Bohemian Rhapsody, and say, "Mamma Mia, let me go. Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for me!" She doesn't get the joke and just looks at me funny. She doesn't like references to il diavolo.

All three of us liked the movie then we headed across the street to Souvenir World. Again, I might not be getting that name right but it doesn't really matter; there are dozens of them there.

It's here that I enact Dominick's Rule of Shopping in a New Place. Margherita doesn't listen to it all the time and usually ignores me, but at least I try to state the rule every time that we go anywhere. I always tell her to look in at least three of the same cheesy stores before buying anything. That way you'll get a gist of the prices as they all sell the same stuff. It's a simple rule.

La Madre bought a few crates of maple syrup or as she calls it, syrupa. Just like the opera singer in Phantom of the Opera , she still feels the need to add an "a" to everything.

Anyway, we went shopping for syrupa then headed back to the hotel to grab a bite to eat at the restaurant in the hotel. Between the Buy 1/Get 1 coupon we had from the Entertainment Book and the fact that we shared two entrees, La Madre was quite proud of the fact that she didn't impact the budget at all by her presence.

After dinner, we got in the car and decided to ride to Clifton Hill, which has most of the "non-fall" attractions. We went into the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum but once we saw the medieval instruments of torture, La Madre wasn't too happy so we decided to split.

"That's nice-a," she said and hurriedly walked out. She wouldn't say anything was bad unless it was REALLY upsetting to her.

We walked along Ferry Street and basically jumped in and out of shops and avoided the haunted houses. Ripley's didn't go over too well, and therefore the haunted house sure as hell wouldn't.

After exploring, we headed back to the hotel to sleep.

Day 2

The next morning, we woke up to go shopping. Before going shopping, we headed over to Rooster's Restaurant to get ripped off. We didn't realize that was going to be the case, but we should have been cautious as Rooster's Restaurant does flow right off the tongue into the rhyming ripped off.

Why were we ripped off? Well, first, their sign has in big letters: $5.99. Only six bucks Canadian you think? What a deal! Then you look at the fine print and see it's in USD. Why would you list prices in Canada in USD and not in Canadian? I don't buy the local paper for six Mexican pesos, so they shouldn't falsely advertise and list a different country's currency up there. We're in Canada; be Canadian.

Anyway, we went in and on every table was coffee. To me, at an All you can eat buffet, coffee on the table implies, "Take some coffee." In fact, everybody was doing so. It was only after you did, the waitress jumped at you from around the corner and said, "Coffee's not included." Surprise, ha ha! She would laugh. Okay, there wasn't laughter, but you got the idea. People were not too happy.

"Oh, but you put the coffee there just to taunt me? Should I ask if the napkins are included too, or are they an extra charge?"

The third problem was this all you can eat buffet didn't mention there might not be much left to eat. The pancakes were pretty much exhausted, and the natives were fighting over the last one. A little old lady kicked me in the groin for the last bagel. I stuck with my bran flakes and cursed Mr. Rooster for the whole morning.

After that, the group's mood was uplifted as we headed out to go shopping. Margherita now is quite happy to say we've gone to Canada every year of our marriage to go shopping. She feels rather cosmopolitan by the idea of traveling north to go shopping.

We first headed to the Canadian Outlet Factory on Lundy's Lane. A mix of various stores, the trick is to go to the ones you don't recognize in the USA. You figure those are the domestic stores and thereby have better prices. With a good sale and a good currency conversion in your favor, it's really quite a bargain.

I would expand on this day a bit more, but there's not much else to say beyond we went shopping all day. From The Canadian Outlet Factory, we headed over to The Bay which is my favorite store in the world (due to the prices), and finally the mall in St. Catharine's.

The only major event of the shopping day was that rare, solar eclipse of an event when Margherita turned to me and said, "I think I'm tired of shopping now."

Tired? The woman for whom stores have opened up just to meet her? The woman who single-handedly revived the economy on no less than three occasions in our nation's history? The woman who claims she is a personal shopper to the stars, and the star is herself? Mrs. I'm Only Supporting The Economy, Mrs. With A Sale Like This, It's Like We're Making Money.

As you can tell, I was a bit surprised she didn't want to go shopping anymore.

We headed back downtown and changed to go to dinner at the Skylon Tower. I've mentioned in numerous stories previously that if you'd like to be a large city, it's a prerequisite to have a rather large tower. It doesn't really need to serve a purpose other than to be tall and allow people to look out from the top and think, "Wow, this is a very tall place." To eat a meal there is a plus. The Skylon is fortunate in that it's rather tall; it spins; and you can get a meal-a three-in-one. It's kind of like when I was younger and Aunt Marianne spun me around in her arms after eating one too many hot dogs, except without any of that instant nausea.

Anyway, dinner was what we considered one of the highlights of the weekend. La Madre was rather happy with it and described it as, "Just like a wedding, but in a tower and lots of food." We ate, looked over the edge of the tower, and watched as the falls changed different colors.

"Ooh look the falls are blue-a."

Even when it ends in a vowel she still adds the "a."

Day 3

I had awoken from a strange dream in which a small Italian woman was rummaging through my clothes looking for money. She wasn't looking for any money but La Madre got up early and started packing everything for us; in my delirious stupor, I didn't know what the hell was going on. I don't like to wake up any earlier than the average first bird who gets the worm. In fact, I'm happy to wait until the semi-comatose bird simply orders a worm for lunch.

Instead of my previous plans of sleeping, I had to get up and change, in fear of La Madre touching any of my used clothes. I'm a private man and even request Margherita to wear a blindfold if she launders my underwear.

I jumped in the shower then supervised the packing while trying not to act neurotic about the matter, and finally we decided to hit the road.

We drove down river to go to the Spanish Aero bridge but unfortunately due to high winds, it was closed. We were going to persuade La Madre to get in a crate and get pulled across the river via a thin wire, but God seemed to intervene. Even Margherita liked the joy of surprising La Madre.

So we started heading back south towards the airport, stopping in various shops to buy more "Syrup-a." Just like baseball cards, La Madre had the entire collection of maple syrup and her pancakes were destined for the big leagues.

Eventually when we exhausted the country of their supply of syrup, we left town and headed south to Fort Erie.

Why?

"To do more shopping," Margherita just chanted as I write this.

They have a duty-free shop where you can trade in your receipts and get credit from the tax refund on items purchased, and then apply it towards tax-free purchases. At this point I was tired and even La Madre (who was known for her Goat Island jog) was tired. We walked around together while Margherita shopped, the both of us bonding over Margherita's seemingly ceaseless energy for shopping.

After Fort Erie, we crossed the Peace Bridge and passed through U.S. security at the border. A nod and a wink, and we were across the border. I felt rather safe knowing his amazingly powerful glance was all that was needed to check the car for terrorists, arms, and drugs rather quickly-no need for documents, just an x-ray glance.

Once we entered Buffalo, we headed south and went to Lackawanna to see Our Lady of Victory Basilica. I mistranslated it and called it Our Lady of Winning [Things] which didn't really make much sense to La Madre. She was also perplexed because I kept saying we're not in boof-a-looo but in Buffalo and not really Buffalo but really in Lackawanna.

"I no wanna nothing," would be her response to hearing Lackawanna.

Oh, the fun of in-law life.

This was what La Madre considered one of the top three things about the weekend: the Falls, the Skylon, and then this.

"Beautiful, bella" she would say interchangeably. She was so ecstatic, she went to the gift shop and bought a round of saint medals for the group.

After church, where else to go but to return the car and stop at Charlie the Butcher's for beef on weck. Regrettably, Charlie wasn't there, however, the beef on weck was.

I loved it; Margherita stuffed her face; and La Madre said she could make this at home. Then again, she always claims she can do that. I must admit nine times out of ten, she can. The tenth time when she can't is when she insists on using Mozzarella cheese over cheddar "because cheddar no is real cheese."

Looking back, the vacation wasn't half bad. La Madre didn't bite or yell at me for anything as mothers-in-law can be prone to do. She didn't make a snide remark or at least one that I could understand, but I can't vouch for the fact that she might have said something in Sicilian under her breath. Margherita got a little grouchy by the last day, but she says it's not her fault as it was just her time to be moody. After all, "Can I be expected to be in a good mood for three days in a row?" Next time, I might leave Margherita home and just deal with the smile and silent nods of La Madre.