Due to our early return from winter break we still have today to visit the Niagara falls. Cornelia, Nicolas, Christoph, Zgiii, Thorben, Peter and I have breakfast at my apartment.

Shortly after we finished our feast we take the van and head southeast. As we start off it's cloudy, but on our way the clouds more and more disperse and finally we arrive at the falls in bright sunshine. About the falls there isn't any more to say what I haven't describe in my last report about them...

Only - winter changes a bit the view of the falls that we had in November. Everything is covered with a blanket of snow and is additionally wrapped up in a thick ice layer. Since a few weeks it hasn't been warmer than -5 ºC, wind has blown the mist above the falls onto buildings, streetlamps, bushes and trees, covering everything up in ice.

But have take a look for yourself......

After one and a half hours we start off again heading for Toronto. The weather is going to get worse again, clouds gather in the sky and as we approach the city it's hazy and cloudy again.

At first we are looking for a restaurant, everybody is quite hungry. We end up in a Texan restaurant where you can get good burger and steaks. The waitress speaks a bit Austrian, it's really amazing. Many people do have a connection to Europe and regarding the young history of Canada you know why. Society over here is a hotchpotch made out of immigrants whose family most often is "Canadian" since few generations only.

However, we explore the city on foot and while Zgiii, Christoph and Thorben make their own way, Cornelia, who has been to Toronto often before, shows us the most interesting places of the metropolis. We see city hall,

Eaton shopping centre,

the street where all hospitals of the city line up, university and Chinatown. the bar and pub quarter that we pass afterwards really looks inviting. We stop for a cup of hot chocolate, rummage around in a bookstore and finally get back to the point where we are going to meet Christoph, Zgiii and Thorben later on. While we are a bit early we try to get a lookout on the city. So we are looking for high buildings like Canada Trust bank, York Hotel (buy the way this hotel also belongs to the chain of luxury hotels at railroad stations, just like Chateau Frontenac and Chateau Laurier). At the Canada Trust skyscraper we get onto the 40^th floor where we are "caught" by an employee. But instead of kicking us out he regrets to disappoint us cause the office is already closed. But he promises to give us a tour when we come back another day before 3pm;-)) In on of the other hotels we at least get onto the 25^th floor from where we have a nice view on Toronto's skyline.

Late in the evening we reach Waterloo. For Peter that means that he has to get his stuff packed and the last evening for him goes by quite fast. Next morning we get printouts of the pictures we took so that Peter can take them along to Germany already. At 1pm we have to get started, at 2pm I drop off Peter at the Toronto airport. After we said goodbye I head back to Waterloo where university started again this morning. The following days the profs voice will bring me down to the earth with a bump. It's too bad that the winter break passed by that fast, but the plans for the coming weekends, month and the summer are to be made.....;-))