Musings on a week-end

This was the view from my window recently.

Can you tell where I was?  Niagara Falls, of course.
Here's a closer view. 

It is a beautiful sight, even in winter.  It's different in winter;  the river is partially iced over and huge chucks of ice get pushed up against the shores;  the roar of the water is muted.

We've gone in the winter for a couple of years because of this:

The place is absolutely deserted. On our walk to the falls we passed maybe 5 people and 1 dog.   If this was summer that path would be full of people, literally from one side to the other jam-packed with tourists trying to get near enough to the railing to get a decent picture of the falls.  Walk a little further down, right beside the falls and it will be 6 or 7 people deep at the railing.  It really takes the enjoyment out of the outing. But with no one else there, it's quite a pleasant experience.

Of course, when you go in the winter you have to accept that most things won't be open.  The Maid of the Mist can't run, naturally;  none of the attractions to do with the falls are open, like the Spanish Aerocar or the Walk Behind the Falls.  

But that doesn't mean nothing is open.  Clifton Hill, the tourist area where all the the fun houses and haunted houses and Guinness Museum of Records is still wonderfully tacky.  The neon lights still blaze away through the night.  The casinos, there are 2, are always open. 

But we don't go to Niagara Falls for any of these.  We go to the waterpark that is connected to the hotel we stay at.  Boy jumps about in the wave pool, or stands under the big bucket that tips out a ton of water, Girl sits and reads and pretends that she isn't with us, and Himself goes down the water slides all alone.  As I was lounging on my plastic beach chair trying not to lapse into  a chlorine and humidity-induced coma, a couple of things got me thinking.

This year the sight of people taking pictures of their kids frolicking in the wave pool and careening down the slides disturbed me.  You've always run the risk of inserting yourself in someone else's holiday snaps, but, in the old days of film, you never gave it a second thought.  You were fairly certain that those people would go home, get their pics developed, look at them once or twice,  stick them in an album and forget about them.  Now, you can't be sure what happens to those pictures.  Will they end up on YouTube or somebody's Facebook page?  Will my big arse be splashed across the internet?  These days you just can't be sure and that made me very uneasy.

Men and women in bathing suits carry themselves differently.  Men just walk, straight up, shoulders back.  They don't cover themselves up with a t-shirt to  walk about or go to the bathroom.  They could be the biggest, hairiest guy in the building but show no self-consciousness about it.  Most women, unless they are in the water, are always covered up with a piece of clothing or a towel wrapped around themselves.  They walk with  arms crossed in front of their stomachs and sort of fold in on themselves, trying to make themselves smaller.  Even young girls who shouldn't have any body image issues deport themselves this way. 

Maybe I shouldn't do so much thinking at the water park.