Things to do

There is a LOT to do in Niagara Falls, and that it's true if you go with kids and it's true if you go as a romantic getaway ;)

The season is very important, a friend told me that in winter you could see the ice falling and that it's amazing, we saw pictures of summer and I can't wait to get back, and you have this week, when you don't see any of those things and the maid of the mist is not working, but still is enjoyable ^^ Another thing, when you were far from the falls, it was hot and nice, when you got close it was REALLY COLD xD

These are some of the things we did :)

Journey Behind the Falls: It's $12 for adults and $7.2 for kids. You get in a elevator that takes you to a tunnel where you can walk behind the falls! There are a few places where you can get close like this one:

And where the sound is LOOOOUUUUDDDD, and there are places where you can get a little bit to the side and really close ;)



Butterfly Conservatory: $11 for adults and $6.50 for kids. This is a place to go most of all with kids that enjoy insects and/or butterflies, they are free all over the place and it's a nice place, but I don't recommend it that much ^^


Whirlpool Aero Car: $11 for adults and $6.5 for kids. In this one you get in that red aero car you can see at the end of the whirlpool and get a round trip from point to point across the whirlpool :) It's a nice ride, I like it more than the butterfly conservatory but don't find it as amazing as journey behind the falls ;)


White Water Walk: $8.50 for adults and $5 for kids. In this one you get into an elevator that takes you down and close to the river :) then you can walk in this little bridge while walking really close to the water. I loved this one, I'm taking my family for sure, since you are so close, it feels great!!


Clifton Hill: This one is "free". It's an area with LOTS and LOTS of attractions, haunted houses, ripley's believe it or not, guiness records, etc, etc, etc, it has everything! We even played some mini golf ^^ Beware that this one is free to look from outside but it's hard to your pocket when you want to go in ;)


The Skywheel: $9.99 for adults and $5.99 for kids. This one is really fun and it's located in the heart of Clifton Hill, but I must warn you, even though it goes really slow, is not for people who is afraid of close spaces and/or highs, I had a really hard time in there, but worth it!


Hope this can help you decide what to do on your next trip :D Always look for some coupons or packages to these rides, but if you are going to take a package I recommend the ones where you can do it in the order you want for as much time as you want :)

Next post, how to get there!!! ^^

Niagara Falls!!

I think is more than time to talk about last week xD Our 3 year anniversary was on April 16 and we celebrated with 2 beautiful nights in Niagara Falls! We left on friday and stayed there until sunday.

I really have no words to describe how beautiful and amazing they are, I actually lost my balance a few times when my legs gave in before such a view.

We stayed at the Marriott hotel in a junior presidential suite, and it was the best of the best! The service was great, the installations beautiful, and the room a dream:

But still, nothing compares to what we went to see, the amazing falls, and the incredible view we had from our room!!:

At night they light the falls, and it's a little difficult to take pictures that would show how spectacular they look, even more when you just found the trick and the battery dies on you, even so, a little picture at night :)

What else did we do? more about it in following posts!! Meanwhile, you can see the pictures in my picasa ;) Niagara Falls

Job offer

As you know, I was working at Konverge and Know as an intern with Career Bridge, I really appreciate that opportunity and recommend the program to everyone that can use it and it's thinking about it!

After saying that, I proudly announce that I quit last week! Why am I proud about that? Because I did it after getting a job offer from Konverge and Know as a Solution Developer :D

I'm really happy about it, since I really like my job (well, ok, sometimes I don't) and the people there, and when I took the job as an intern I set a 3 months limit where I should get a job offer there or start looking someplace else, hey, that's the only way you can get better opportunities!

Well, now I have the same responsabilities with the same work hours but with a full time title, better wage and benefits :D and I love it!!

Invitation letter

My parents and sisters got their tourist visas this week so they can come visit us anytime they want :) The visas are valid for just one year but hey, something is something! and now they can come this year to visit us :D

So you can have some idea of what you need to do, my sisters are legally adult and students dependant of my parents, so they can't use the same form or the same payment but they can have the same file in the embassy.

At the end they had to fill a form for my parents and one for each sister. The payment was a check for my parents and a check for each sister again. They went last week with the max payment for a family and a form for the 4 of them, and that was wrong, but the girl that was at the embassy was pretty good and help them fill the forms for my sisters and let my dad go to the bank to get the 2 other checks and get back to the embassy.

You need to take to the embassy everything that can prove that you want to go back to your country, including the last 3 bank statements, but be carefull to take the latest statements, since my parents were going the last week of march and the latest stament was from february but at the end they went the first week of april so they had to run to the bank to get march's statement.

I also sent a copy of my latest work payment, a copy of my resident card and this letter of invitation:

Aiglee Castillo
--address--

Monday, February 18, 2008

Dear Visa Officer,

I am writing this to support Visitor Visa applications of my Parents and sisters.
My father, --name-- is 57 years old and stays at --address--. My mother, --name--, age 56 and sisters --name--, 25, and --name--, 18, live with him. They’d like to visit Canada and stay with my husband and me for some time. They are in good health and capable of doing things on their own. Please note that they do not have any intention to settle in Canada permanently.

Following is further information about me.

• I am a Canadian resident staying at --address--(copy of my bank statement attached).
• I am staying with my husband.
• I am working with --name--. My husband works for --name--. We both have permanent full time jobs.
• We have sufficient funds to support their expenses if necessary.

If you need any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me at my residence at --telephone-- or at my mobile phone --telephone--. I can also be reached by e-mail at --mail--

Yours truly,


I hope this can help you a little bit ;)

Toronto vs Boston

Yesterday we went to our first beisbol game in Canada!!! :D

We are not really big beisbol fans that know everything about their team and the players, or go to every game or know all the statistics, but we love the ocassional game and since yesterday's game seems like we are going to go more and more :)

We went to see the Toronto Blue Jays vs the Boston Red Sox, which is pretty funny to venezuelans since we have chocolats in Venezuela called Bostons and others called Torontos, so a lot of the times I said I were coming to Toronto they would say "and Boston?", can you imagine when we said to our friends that we were going to a game between Toronto and Boston, so funny xD

The stadium is great! We had good seats and was pretty fun, we ate hot dogs and cheared up for Toronto :D We even saw 3 flags, one Canadian and 2 Venezuelan flags!! That was fun too, since they even zoomed one of the venezuelan flags that was pretty far away from us and we started cheering for the flag ^^

The game had everything, we saw:
* Stollen bases
* A broken bat flying away
* One single home run
* One home run with man in base
* A jay with a broken wing (4 players running for a ball couldn't finish very well)
* And a Grand Slam :D

In terms of fun, between the beisbol games in Venezuela, Atlanta, New York and Toronto, it goes: Venezuela > Toronto > Atlanta > New York ^^

You can see mor pictures in my album as always ^^

Shine a Light

And we did even more yesterday! After the ROM I had another big cup of hot chocolat and went to a Rolling Stones concert!! yeah yeah, how can you do that? Since you can see them in Imax, Shine a Light, and it's really incredible! amazing! spectacular!

I'm a Beatles fan, and I'm not a really big fan of the Rolling Stones, specially the lyrics, but the music and the concert and in Imax was something very very worth it!

I came home straight to bed and today it's been another big day, what a weekend xD

Royal Ontario Museum (ROM)

Yesterday was a really long day because we went to the Royal Ontario Museum after going to the CN Tower!! Like some of you know, I've been with a terrible flu since monday, so how could I manage to do it? A lot of acetominophen, breath right at nigh and a big cup of hot chocolat between the tower and the museum xD

The Royal Ontario Museum or ROM is pretty AMAZING, I've been to museums in Caracas, Atlanta and New York and the ROM in exterior design and dinosaurs has the lead without a doubt!! I know I still have to go to London and Paris :p but hey, I thought the one in New York was the best of the best and it was a great surprise to find such an amazing museum in my new home city :D

It's big but not BIG and it pretty fun for the kids and the adults, we had a great time and I'm planning on going back a lot more! I'm sure we didn't see it all, since we got there at 3pm and the museum was closed at 5:30pm, so not a lot of time, and the coats, jackets and bags from the CN Tower? Not a problem, for just 1$ you can leave them at the door no problem :D

More pictures in my picasa web album!! ;)

CN Tower II

Yesterday we went again to the CN Tower but this time we couldn't find a cloud in the sky!! So we paid for the top, the Observation SkyPod Experience :D With that you can get to the observation deck, the glass floor and the SkyPod which is at 447 meters high! I'm not kidding, we were so high that I was dizzy xD But it was so fun either way :)

Here you can see when we were arriving to the tower using the skywalk, and my cousin had to lay down to take that picture, but it was so worth it!!

In this one we are in the skypod, reeeeeeeally high xD And I suffer from vertigo hehe

And this one is a beautiful picture of what you can see up there, we have a lot of pictures and I had to chose just one for this spot, but you can see a lot more in my picasa album ;)

Do you want more? Go to my album, I have a lot more beautiful pictures like this one, even one of the building were I work ^^