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Trip to Niagara Falls
Queens, New York
Discounting the packing, grooming and traveling by the two- dollar cab and then the Q44 bus , the first leg of my trip to Niagara falls (a birthday present to my-self) this past September started in Flushing, Queens (the same Flushing, Queens where Fran Fine was living with her boyfriend who kicked her out “in one of those crushing scenes”, which misadventure led her to the door of Maxwell Sheffield where she became the nanny to the children and eventually his wife to the great pleasure of her mother who despaired that she would never married and despite the many efforts of Maxwell’s assistant Sisi Babcock who made every effort to twart a romance from developing between the two) in front of the Flushing Mall which forms a part of the busy commercial zone of what some consider to be the new and still changing China Town. There, I along with other tourists boarded a bus that would take us to our main rendezvous point. The Flushing pick-up point was probably set up to accommodate the the large customer support of the Asian community of a tours which is probably run by an Asian Company L & L Tours whose tour guides and drivers all seem to be of Asian descent. And so a little after 7:00 a.m two buses of mostly Asian passengers, a Russian family bound for the Washington, DC Tour, a Bengali father and daughter recently having moved to New York, and I set off for lower Manhattan where we would disperse to the buses bound for the various tour destinations.
We disembarked in lower Manhattan and since I had kept both pieces of my luggage with me I immediately set out to find the tour bus bound for Niagara Falls asking directions of the tour guides standing on the side-walk along the three of more blocks on which various tour buses were awaiting their passengers. After walking two blocks I arrived at my assigned bus and a few minutes later my bus tour guide, Peter. It being about 7:45am and feeling in control, I felt confident enough to explore the nearby surrounding area for to buy a hot drink to have along with my sandwich of Jamaican sweet bread, eggs, turkey bacon, and cheese, ingredients left over from my birthday breakfast, and which I intended to have once our bus was bound for Niagara Falls. I bought a cup of hot water, milk and sugar from a little Asian Tea shop just half a block across the street from where my bus was located and return to my waiting area to settle down and wait for boarding.
About fifteen minutes later our guide Peter made the call for boarding which involved confirming attendance and assigning seats. Suddenly, the area turned into something similar to the scene portrayed of the New York Stock Exchange in Trading Places. I , however, managed to maintain much of position in the line (former line that is). The experience , though, my reminded me of attempting to board the public bus at certain locations on the New York City Transit Bus route. Eventually, we boarded the bus, settled into our seats, and set off to Niagara Falls.
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