O Canada....

I’ve been to Canada three times. Well, twice really. Niagara Falls doesn’t really count, as actual Canadians stay as far away as possible from what is probably the worst tourist trap in the history of the world. The entire place is designed to herd you into some falls-related attraction through an insanely priced gift shop, and then herd you OUT of the attraction and into ANOTHER insanely priced gift shop. It’s like a series of capitalistic caves. You start drinking $11 Molson’s just to forget that you’re being robbed. Yet people come from all over the world….and at times it seems like the entire island of Japan has descended on a viewing area about the size of a church parking lot, with expensive cameras hanging from their necks, elbowing you out of the way so they can get better pictures. I’ve never seen so many selfie-sticks in my life. People do dangle themselves over the edge, and every year some poor sod goes overboard. But to me it’s a miracle that frenzied tourists aren’t throwing each other into the Falls on a daily basis. If you have a delicate disposition or a hair-trigger temper, this is not the place for you.