Niagara Engagement Vacay

WOOT! We're engaged! Several of you probably knew that we were headed to Niagara for vacation, but the engagement plan was in the works the whole time. Here's the long version of the story.

John and I decided a while back that he should get an awesome...thing when we got engaged, since I got a beautiful ring with a pearl that my mom brought back from Japan over 40 years ago (another story).




With historic items at the Niagara Historical Society Museum.














After a lot of discussion, it was decided that we would go on an awesome vacation to Niagara on the Lake, which would serve as the setting for us to actually get engaged. We had a wonderful time there in April and we were excited to go back.





John with other historic items in the War of 1812 gallery. The Niagara region in Ontario was the site of a lot of War of 1812 action. And you know what that means - 2012 is a big year! An issue for a separate post, I'm sure.




























We arrived in NOTL in time for some afternoon touristing and wine tasting. Our first stop was the historical museum, where we saw (among other things), a small table made in Paris during Rameau's lifetime.

























We stopped at this gazebo on Lake Ontario for some pictures (part of John's plot).







































He reviewed his notes while I snapped a few shots, and then he awkwardly said, "Hey...it's time." And proposed.

That night we had dinner at the Ravine Winery Bistro, concluding with chocolate pot de creme.

















Ravine was our favorite dinner of the two, though we also had a very nice meal at Strewn Winery. We tasted wines at both Reif and Stratus wineries. I think Stratus, the relatively new place with a modernist design scheme, was our favorite over all, though Strewn is arguably a better deal for their inexpensive, delicious wine. We fit in a 3 mile run along the Niagara parkway on a chilly cloudy morning, followed by fabulous diner breakfast for $3.50. This vacay was a good example of how you can take John anywhere - an upscale winery restaurant, followed by a cheap diner, and then episodes of Seinfeld at the hotel at night.

The vacay was the perfect start to our Christmas and a fun place for us to get engaged. By Friday morning we were itching to call our friends and family to announce the engagement, and we headed to Fort Wayne just afterward.

Niagara Mini-Vacation, April 2011 - Part 3

Our second day at Niagara on the Lake didn't go as planned, but we made the most of it.


















The forecast was for thunderstorms on day 1 and scattered showers with partial sunshine on day 2, both with temperatures in the 55-60 range. But the storms didn't behave like they predicted, and they sort of missed NOTL on day 1 to come back for round two later on day 2. There was a terrible wind storm from the front, and it pretty much knocked out power all over town for the whole day.



















It's weird to talk about storms when I look at these photos, just like it was when we glanced out the window that day. It was beautiful! What's the problem?!





















This tree and dozens of others hit power lines, fences, and in a couple of nasty cases, people's homes. It was not good.


































We didn't see all the downed trees right away. Our first stop was to find some diner breakfast food in Virgil, a little spot between the Hilton Garden Inn and NOTL proper. The first place we saw had a sign for all-day, $2.99 breakfast, but their power was only half on, and their cash register was down. Instead, we went across the street to Silk's, who also had a $2.99 breakfast. Perfect.
















I can only speak for their breakfast special, but it was just what we were looking for. Plus they had electricity, even though they were within walking distance of the first place we tried. If/when we go back to NOTL, we plan to keep that place in mind.

Though only half of the street we visited in Virgil had power, and the wind was so strong you could hardly open the car door, we pressed on, figuring it was a good day for inside activities like drinking wine.










Signs for wineries, popping up on every road.










Niagara on the Lake has a fabulous website where you can find all sorts of info about what to do there. They have a separate page for wineries, which they group by location. John and I spent some time reading reviews on Yelp and TripAdvisor, as well as the wineries' websites, trying to get a sense of the range of prices, hours, and a feel for the place. We had a couple in mind before hand, and they were both on the free NOTL tourist map from the hotel. But we also just sort of stopped where it was convenient as we drove around. Like I mentioned, there are dozens. You could drive down almost any road and see a sign for multiple wineries. The highway signs start advertising them just as you enter Niagara.


































I took the photos above while we drove along the Niagara Parkway, a strip along the Niagara River with a lot of B&Bs and wineries, and a 34 KM running/cycling path. This place is like runner heaven and I was sort of disappointed that we didn't get to try any of that out.

Since the weather was sort of nuts that day, some places were in better shape than others to have customers. We stopped at one place that was only sort of open, and the woman working there seemed to have a lot to take care of and she was only one working, so we excused ourselves and went looking elsewhere.

















This picture pretty much sums up the day. Storm damage, wineries, and a pretty good experience, even if the weather was nuts. Our two favorite places were Reif Estate Winery and Strewn Winery, and unfortunately I don't have any photos of either one.

Reif was our first stop, and when we got there I wasn't sure it was open. There was a sign on the door, directing us to another entrance, as their main double doors were too vulnerable to wind damage. They didn't have power, and I was sure they were just letting us in to tell us they were closed. Instead, they pointed us toward the bar and a server came over to chat us up. He made an awkward joke that I can't remember and then said, "Go on, laugh! It's a crazy day! Just enjoy it." We really appreciated their attitude toward the whole thing.
We tried four red wines - the Magician (a shiraz/pinot blend, my personal favorite), a Shiraz, Pinot, and Meritage, and ended up buying the Shiraz to have with some spicy fish for our last meal before the comps start. Normally they give you one complimentary taste, and then the next three cost between $1-5.* They also have a $5 tour that we planned to take, had the power been on. When we purchased the wine, however, they didn't include any charge for the tasting, and I thought was pretty classy of them. Maybe it was because their power was out and it was a weird visit, or for some other reason, I don't know. We would definitely like to go back there next time we visit and see the whole place, since there was a lot that we missed in the dark.

I think Strewn was John's favorite. Again, when we pulled up I wasn't sure they were open, but there were probably ten cars parked out front. Just as we opened the doors, two women came out into the foyer area to greet us and said, "The power just came back on!" And John said back, "Obviously. We brought it with us." They have a restaurant and a cooking school with a huge range of classes and packages. It's something we'd love to try in the future. One lady asked if we were there for lunch and said that they weren't ready to open the restaurant at all, since they only just had power. But since we were just there to taste wine, they were happy to serve us, and a very nice lady showed us the tasting room.
Strewn had two sort of tiers of tasting. The first only features wines that are $20 and under, and the other side of the room has their reserve line, that they call Terroir. We stayed on the $20-and-under side of the room, but we did try one red Terroir wine blend that they call the Strewn Three and we bought a bottle of it on sale to take home and save for a special occasion.
My favorite of the white wines was the 2009 Barrel Aged Chardonnay, which we bought and plan to drink after the comps. Their wines are mostly very affordable and the tastes were only fifty cents, so it's a great place to visit for people like me and John.

Still, there were probably a dozen other wineries that looked interesting to us. Since the power was still out all over town, we decided to head home a few hours earlier than planned. But the wind was still so strong that the O. P. P. closed the expressway. We decided to kill a little time at an outlet mall near by. It was nothing to write home about, but not a bad way to spend time while waiting for the wind to die down. The power outage meant that we didn't get to visit as many little stores in NOTL as we planned, so between that and the wineries, we have plenty to do when we go there again. And since it's so close by and such a lovely place to visit, we definitely plan to take another trip to Niagara on the Lake.




*A note about wine tasting: the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO, or "Lick-bow" to my classmates) allows you to taste four wines at each winery in the province, so the fact that you have to pay per taste didn't really bother me as much. Even if we had to pay for them at Reif, it wouldn't have added too much to our bill. That is, unless you want to taste icewine, the local specialty, since it tends to cost a bit more. I've tried it before and am not such a big fan, so we didn't think it was worth the money. But the region does have an Ice Wine Festival that might be fun to check out, if you're into that kind of wine.

Niagara Mini-Vacation, April 2011 - Part 2.

This is part of a 3-post series on our trip to Niagara last month. Here's part 1.

John and I knew we wanted to stay between the Falls and Niagara on the Lake, a cute town on Lake Ontario. Our hotel was the Hilton Garden Inn at Niagara on the Lake. I did a lot of searching around for B&Bs (there are literally dozens in the town and surrounding area) and other hotels, and we were glad to have chosen the Hilton Garden Inn. The dates of the vacation were strategic; we knew it would be either the last week of April or the first week of May. In order to be budget conscious, we wanted to go during the week, instead of the weekend, and to avoid May because it's the official start of tourist season. The prices for hotels and a lot of other things increase that week, and the same hotel room we had would have been $50 more per night after May 1st!
The room was your standard hotel room, and we enjoyed the convenience of the hotel's location. It was 16 minutes from the falls, easily accessed from the highway, and about 10 minutes from downtown NOTL, and all the wineries that surround it. I'll cover the wineries we tried in the next post, but seriously, it seemed like every road had a sign for at least 4-5 different wineries. We also picked up a pretty helpful map of NOTL and the area at the hotel.

Here are some pics of the town itself.





















Lots of pretty stores and restaurants.








That's the swanky Prince of Wales Hotel and Lounge.


















































































We had some time before our dinner reservation so we looked around for a bar and had a drink at Corks. They had a nice selection of beers on tap, including some local ones, and a lengthy wine list, featuring wines from the region. I would have been happy to eat dinner there. It seemed like there were a lot of options, if our original pick for dinner had fallen through.






















I spent some time looking through restaurant reviews on Yelp and TripAdvisor for a dinner place, and even though it had mixed reviews, we settled on the Olde Angel Inn - and I'm glad we did.
























They had tons of great dinner choices, especially for a pescatarian like myself. The veggie options included broccoli/cheese quiche, and vegetable curry. Since I'm still eating fish, I went with the fish and chips, and I wasn't disappointed.






















John had steak and onion pie (with puff pastry on top - mmmm), and he liked it pretty well.





























One of the things I really liked about the Angel Inn was that the bar was full of people having a great time watching the hockey game, but we were able to sit in an adjacent room that still felt lively but was quiet enough to talk. It's sort of a pet peeve of mine: I HATE being the only people in a restaurant, but I also don't like it when it's so noisy that I can't have a conversation. This place had a nice balance, and the food came out quickly.







(That's what she said.)
















One of several pictures that I thought looked like an album cover. Maybe this one is for folk music?






















After dinner, John pointed out that we were only a couple of blocks from the lake, and that it'd be nice to take a walk there.

























The shoreline there is beautiful. You can see one of the historic forts near by (this one is Fort George, I think? But maybe not?).











































































If you squint, you can see that tiny grey outline on the horizon - it's Toronto. I screwed with the lighting in this photo to make the city more visible.




































Gorgeous biking/walking path.
















Another album cover shot.

Niagara Mini-Vacation, April 2011 - Part 1.

By the time you're reading this, John and I will be taking our comprehensive exams. They start May 9th and go until about June 6th. We get 4 weeks to answer 3 questions, 20+ pages each. It's daunting, but we're both trying to stay positive. It will be hard, but we can do it. We'll be busy, but not insane.
(I've written several blog posts in advance, so the thrilling one-post-per-week pace won't change during May).



John in the Falls parking lot. Check out the hotels up on the ridge. Niagara Falls-the-town is sort of like Vegas, but you know, tackier.









Several friends of mine have had babies in the last year or two, and so I've learned about the concept of a "baby-moon." It's what you do while you're pregnant to make the most of your just-the-two-of-us time before the baby comes along and your lives change so drastically. John and I decided that this would be a good time to have a "comps-moon" or a pre-comps vacation. Not that babies and comps are similar, but since there were only two weeks between finals and comps, we wanted to make the most of that time, get out of town for a couple days, and see some sights.
One of the great things about London is its proximity to touristy places, even though the city itself isn't really one of them (which is fine with us). Since it's too cold to go to the beach, we decided to try the Niagara region. Besides the falls, the area has a variety of wineries and cool places to visit. I'll break the Niagara posts up into three, since there were two days and a lot of pictures. Here goes #1!


Niagara Falls



The beautiful Falls Welcome Center.












The Ontario locals recommended seeing the falls, but that we would otherwise want to stay away from Niagara Falls itself. It's very touristy, sort of like Vegas, but really more like Branson, MO. Still, they've really spent a lot of money making the falls an easy, lovely, place to visit.
























We started at the Falls Welcome Center, where John pretended to be a lookout. They have a few attractions there, like Niagara's Fury, and the Journey Behind the Falls. We opted to do the latter, since it wouldn't involve any motion sickness for me.


















The Journey Behind the Falls is pretty simple - you get a poncho, and they take you down an elevator to some tunnels behind the falls, and you can walk around and look out.
























The tunnels were mostly built in the 1930s, and I had the sensation while we were descending that the whole operation got more and more low-tech the lower we went under ground. The tunnels open up to portals where you can see the water rushing around. It doesn't seem like a water fall because of how the water sprays every where. It looks like it's spraying from all directions.
































After 10 minutes walking around the tunnels, we went out to the special, Behind the Falls observation deck.


































The lower level of the deck was so wet that I put the camera away. I was grateful for the poncho at that point, since we were able to walk right up to the falls, and they sprayed constantly. The temperature was also a solid 10-15 degrees F below what hit had been above ground, away from the falls, so we pulled our arms inside the ponchos for warmth.
Our feeling about the Behind the Falls trip was that it was fun and worth doing once, but I wouldn't pay to do it again. It's fun to see the falls from above, too, and I'm glad we went there.




































After we'd had enough time up close with the falls, we headed back above ground to take more photos and walk around. The weather was supposed to thunderstorm, but we were lucky and caught the warm, sunny front before the storm.




Horseshoe Falls, a.k.a, the Canadian side.













The falls are pretty windy.





















Falls come from Lake Erie, go past Niagara, down the Niagara River, and into Lake Ontario. They recede every year, and apparently they'll recede into Lake Erie eventually and disappear.









Honeymoon Bridge.