It’s always interesting traveling to new places. What is even more interesting, however, is visiting places that you have not seen since you were a child.
Several years ago, I had a strong desire to go back to New York and visit Niagara Falls. When I was five years old my family lived in Buffalo, New York. We were less than 30 minutes from Niagara Falls so we visited there almost every Saturday night.
I had such fond memories of my time there as a child that I wanted to go back to visit. My husband had never been there and so I was looking forward to showing him the sights as well as see any changes that had occurred over the years. Since I am now 65 years old, I was pretty sure there would be some dramatic changes.
My husband was not as eager to travel to the falls as I was. As he put it, “What is there to do but look at a waterfall?” But I knew that this was just no ordinary waterfall. This was the great Niagara Falls, and if I could just get him there, I knew he would love it.
We flew into Buffalo on an autumn afternoon in 2012, rented a car, and made our way north to the border. We decided to check into a hotel on the Canadian side of the falls. I had visited Canada many times, but had never stayed there, so I was looking forward to exploring Canada.
The falls were still just as beautiful as ever. And I enjoyed my husband’s reaction of absolute awe. We took in the falls and went back to see them at night with the colored lights. Amazingly, it was 9:30 at night and the sun was just setting. We even rode the giant Ferris wheel overlooking the falls. And just for my husband, I had booked the Thunderboat, a speedboat which would literally take us close to the falls and past the famous whirlpools.
Our first day there, we were starving and so we went to get a hamburger. When my husband received the check, I thought he would have a heart attack. A hamburger was $15 and my husband let it be known loud and clear that price was ridiculous. I was ready to toss them over the falls right after that.
But the next day we drove through a small town on the Canadian side of the falls and decided to stop for lunch. We saw a quaint Bistro right across the street from a courthouse and decided to stop in. Looking for parking, we noticed an empty spot across the street from the Bistro. There was a sign on the curb that said “No Standing”.
My husband looked at me and asked what that meant. I responded with ”How should I know? I haven’t been here since I was five years old.”
That led us into a discussion about what “No Standing” could possibly mean. We came to the conclusion that it was the Canadian version of “No Loitering”. So we moved on across the street and had a great lunch.
After lunch we returned to our car to find a traffic ticket, much to our horror. A ticket? For what?
Worried we scanned the ticket and saw a sentence that said we could come to court and fight the ticket. But we certainly were not going to do that, so we did the next best thing. We looked up at the courthouse, checked our watches to be sure it was still open, and walked straight in.
At a window with a sign indicating this was the place to pay our ticket, we went up to the window and met a nice Canadian lady seated on the other side of the window.
“Ma’am, we found this ticket on our car and have no idea why we got it,” my husband said with his southern drawl. “You see, we weren’t standing anywhere, we were eating lunch across the street. And the ticket says we were standing.”
The lady just smiled and looked at us sympathetically and a little pityingly. “You’s guys aren’t from around here, are ya?” She asked in a clipped Canadian voice.
“No ma’am, we are from South Carolina in the United States,” said my husband.
“Well,” she said, “in Canada, “standing” means parking. This is a ticket for parking in a no parking zone.”
Was she kidding? Obviously not. My husband and I just looked at each other with blank expressions that sort of said ‘what planet have we just landed on’? And to make matters worse the ticket’s fine was quite hefty, And of course, we had made the trip on a budget.
I think the lady really felt sorry for us because she admitted that we weren’t the first people (I think in her head she was saying “dummies”) to have this problem, and so she took the ticket and graciously said no fine would be required. But she did warn us not to” stand” anywhere in Canada again.
No problem. After the $15 hamburger and a ticket for standing, I was ready to go back to the good old USA…where “No Parking” means “No Parking”.
