New York IV

In the morning of the next day we had a relaxed breakfast at Starbucks and then just strolled around the city, did some shopping, and watched all the different people passing by. As we had to check out at the hotel we soon were looking for a place for lunch. Near the Four Seasons we found a nice restaurant, that rather looked small at first glance, but we could get up to the first floor where we were lucky to find a rather large terrace with palm trees and a small bar. I had some whole wheat pasta (yeah, whole wheat!) with chicken, cherry tomatos and pecorino! Fabulous, especially as that was a nice little spot to eat! If you want to know the name, just ask. Soon after we were back in our car, heading in direction of Niagara Falls. Due to our incredible TomTom GPS navigation system, we never had to think about wrong turns. Moreover, we were totally five people in the car. Especially the backseat in the middle was not that comfortable, so we always changed our sitting positions at every eating or fuel stop. And there was just one way to put all the baggage in the trunk! The doormen at the hotels always tried to put the baggage in, but we had to help or at least tell them how to put it in correctly.

Anyway, the Niagara Falls were pretty amazing. The falls are situated at the border of Canada and the United States. The Niagara River connects Lake Erie with the Lake Ontario and drops down for more than 53m between the twin cities of Niagara Falls, ON and Niagara Falls, NY. That's approximately twice as high as the Rhine Falls, but what makes it even more impressive is the fact that they are more than 790m wide! Actually it's pretty difficult to get a full picture of the falls, because you have a cloud of tiny water drops in the middle of the falls. At least there's always a rainbow in the sky.

At the border to the United States we had some little problems. As Laura had a student visa, she was actually not really aloud to re-enter the States without a green form. Thus, we had to wait in a overcrowded waiting room, full of Asians and Mexicans that were waiting for their visa. You were not aloud to make phone calls unless you wanted to get arrested. And Barack Obama was smiling at us from the picture frame on the wall. Eventually, after waiting for an hour, we got our passports back and could pass the border. As it was already late, we decided to sleep in a cheap motel in Syracuse, NY. The next day we drove to Central Valley, NY where, hidden between green hills, lies the Woodbury Common Premium Outlet. Here you can find brands like Lacoste, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger or Salvatore Ferragamo. We spent quite some money there!