Spring Break - Buffalo, St. Patrick's Day Parade, NHL and Niagara Falls (Week 29)

I spent the first 2 days of the spring break in Buffalo and Niagara. I departed at Friday at about 11am from Huntington with a Greyhound bus and arrived late at about 11pm in Buffalo, NY. As it was really late, I didn't do anything then - I just went to the hostel I stayed in and went to bed. Unfortunately, the walls were not really thick and I could hear all the noise from the club next to our hostel - but after some time I could fall asleep. The next day, I just wanted to look around in Buffalo, see the city and the NHL-game at the evening. But it came better than I could ever expect. I asked at the front desk, what I should see in the city and the girl behind the desk told me that there was a St. Patrick's Day parade going on that day. Just when I wanted to leave the hostel, I met a girl from Bavaria, Germany. After a short talk, she decided also to go to the parade. We first went to a military park (it should be a military museum on a ship), but unfortunately it was closed that day and we could only see it from the outside.

After we looked around a little bit, we left for the parade. A short walk later, we arrived at the intersection, where the parade should begin - but we were almost one hour too early there. But it wasn't a big problem, there was already a lot going on - the people at the houses made pre-parties with barbecue and beer. We just got a beer from a store on the street of the parade and just waited at the side of the street for the parade to begin. And then something unexpected happened, the owner of the house we were standing close to just invited us to have some of their hot dogs, tacos in a bag and Guinness beer. We gladly accepted the offer and had nice conversations with the family and their friends. After some time passed, the parade began and it was really nice to watch all the green dressed people and to listen to some doodling Irish people. After the parade, we also got invited to celebrate the St. Patrick's Day with the family in their house and we had some typical drinks for St. Patrick's Day. We drank a "car bomb" - a Guinness beer where you drop a shot of Jameson whiskey and Baileys into it - that was very good. We also went to an Irish Pub afterwards and we got even driven back to our hostel.

After we rested about an hour in our hostel, we went to the NHL game (we both had tickets for the game, which was just pure accident) of the Buffalo Sabres vs. the New York Rangers. 19070 people attended the game and it was just a great experience. The Rangers won with 2 - 0, I saw one power play, and one empty net goal, and also typically a fight of two players. The atmosphere was also really great and I will never forget this intense game :).

After the game we decided to go to the birthplace of the Buffalo Chicken Wings - a bar called "Anchor Bar". We had their Chicken Wings together with a Honey Brown Beer which was just delicious.

At the next day I went as planned to the Niagara Falls. I went by bus there, which took about one hour. First, I watched the Falls, which are about 53 meters (176 ft) high, from the American side and then I also went to the Canadian side, where you have a much better view of both of the falls - the American and the Horseshoe Falls. At the Canadian side there is also a really active district, where there is a lot going on and I had a good time there. I left at about 8:30pm back to Buffalo and caught the bus to New York City at 12:30 and went over night to NYC.

And right now I am sitting at the Times Square writing this blog post and I'm hoping that my time here will be just as good as it was in Buffalo/Niagara!