Of course, no trip can occur without some sort of anecdote. In this case, the anecdote was not my fault. We left Niagara towards Buffalo to go watch the NFL game. Once we reached the US-Canada border, my dad realized he forgot his passport. We drove back, but we were very nervous because the car had the gas light on (in other words it was on the reserve gas). My dad turned on an exit on the freeway to look for gas, but instead of making it better we were going on a longer road to the city and there was no gas until we got to Niagara. We made it.

When we parked in the hotel to get the passports, my dad went up. But then Paula (my dad's girlfriend) remembered that my dad would probably forget her visa. She decided to go up too, but my dad had already gone. So I call my dad and tell him to wait for Paula in the room, but Paula once she walks inside remembers that she probably will miss my dad (38 floors), hence she waits for him in the bottom of the elevators. The delay was incredible, yet very funny.

We then drove again and the line at the border was long, it took us 70 minutes to cross. We got in the game in the last minute of the first half.
I sat down with Jaime (my cousin) and Gloria (his girlfriend). The tickets for my dad and Paula were farther away. We were right behind one of the endzones and immediately, Buffalo scored there with a pass. It was incredibly fun being among all the fans. My cousin is an all-time Bills fan. For some strange reason, Jaime and I love american football, eventhough we have lived most of our lives in Mexico and grew up in Mexico (Jaime lives in Chihuahua). Jaime has seen all of the Bills games of the last 7 seasons (he has the NFL Ticket to watch any game he wants). During the whole game it was snowing and by the end of the game my feet were frozen.

Buffalo almost pulled off the upset. After starting losing 17-0 (first half), they came back to 17-14 and had a very nice drive that was stopped by a questionable call by a referee (after the replay, I agree with the decision) and then a bad call on a pass that was certainly interference. The bills momentum got stopped and San Diego, which is arguably the best team in the NFL, did what great teams do, they scored when it was necessary.

Something funny happened on the next drive by Buffalo. Only 4 minutes were left and they needed two scores (no timeouts remaining). Losman throws an ugly throw and it gets intercepted. The Charger, instead of dropping down and ending the game right there (San Diego with possession of the ball, needed only to kneel down and the game was theirs), decided to return the interception. He fumbled and Buffalo had some life in them. They did a great drive to score with only 30 seconds remaining. Then they onside kick and recover the ball, unfortunately they touched it before the 10 yards. The referees took forever to decide what had happened, so the tension was in the air, then the ref said "bla bla bla hence first down Buffalo...I mean San Diego". Putting our hopes up in vain.

After the game, we went to eat dinner. I had a BLT Chicken Finger sandwich, it was pretty good. But I have to say, I ate Buffalo wings in Buffalo. The dessert was delicious (I love cinnamon apple pie a la mode).

I stayed with Jaime and Gloria that night and left at 5:30 am on a taxi to the Buffalo airport.

Handed in (at the mailbox) my finals for Combinatorics and Analysis at 4:25am. Turned in a bit more than 6 problems for analysis (6 completely solved and four of them with either parts of solutions or solutions with some iffy parts). I turned in 3 solutions in combinatorics.

After that, I ran home, threw into a bag three shirts, a sweater, a scarf, a hat and gloves. Left immediately and barely caught the Dartmouth Coach towards Logan airport (Boston). The bus had the movie "Inconvenient Truth" which I will probably watch on Friday (the next time I take the bus) since I had to sleep this time. I flew on JetBlue for the first time in my life, and I gotta say, it is great. They have Direct TV on the plane and it is cheaper.

Arrived at Buffalo, took a public bus to the bus station and then waited three hours (while doing my algebra final) for the bus to Niagara, Ontario. I worked a long time on an algebra problem, today I realized nobody in the class has solved it, so I don't think I'll work on it any longer (the other problems become priorities).

I forgot my passport, so I had some problems with customs, but it was ok. I met up with my dad and we had a delicious, albeit expensive dinner. It had a wonderful view of the Niagara Falls. After dinner we went to see a magic show. It was excellent. It was a magician who has been the lead magician at Ceasar's Palace and other Vegas places. The magic was wonderful and images of the movie "Prestige" kept popping in my mind.

At night, I went to the casino. I will detail this in another post.

Next day, I drove to Toronto (my dad had rented a car and since he wanted to do more touring in Niagara, he let me take the car). Lucky me, I found the place where Sid told me to meet him without a map or anything, just plain luck. We walked around downtown, we ate at an Indian restaurant (not good, but not bad), we went to the University of Toronto, checked out the public library, walked some more. The fun part was getting to see Sid (Sid, Arjun and me were best buddies in Budapest), the conversations were funny and it even got to be philosophical at some points. It was great.

After driving back to Niagara I tried playing more at the casino, but the line to play was extra long (32 players in queue for the 1-2 NL and 17 players for the 2-5 limit).

The other parts of the weekend will be written down in extra posts.