Inbar Levona

Hey friends. Remember when I wrote about condensed milk and proposed an experiment consisting of various milk products? No one ever stepped up, I’m still waiting for that generous soul to donate some condensed and/or powdered milk. This is for science, I swear. Now that I’ve gotten out of my way, it’s time I share a story.

Recently, I went to Buffalo, situated in the county of Niagara. It is so horrible there, sweet Jesus. My mother, grandparents and sister left early in the morning, as they were hoping to do some shopping. It took them three and a half hours to get there, as opposed to an hour and a half, so they were exhausted upon arrival and ended up being bored in the hotel. My father and I, the brilliant and wonderful beings that we are, left at four thirty and arrived at six.

We stayed at the Days Inn. It was unsurprisingly ugly and quite grimy. Before I continue, I’d like to notify you to refrain from telling my parents I wrote about this, my mom will yell at me and tell me that I’ve brought shame to the family. Anyway, the Days Inn. Half the light bulbs in our room were burnt out, the bathtub paint was peeling and there was a cigarette burn in one of the blankets. Sometimes when I read Days Inn I mistake it for “sophistication”.

There is no nightlife in Buffalo. It’s just dismal, and populated with obese people who believe that Denny’s provides top-notch food. Speaking of Denny’s, the hotel provided us with some coupons, so we took it upon ourselves to dine in the conveniently located diner situated on the first floor. There were no vegetables on the menu, just meat and fried stuff. I am vegetarian, so this posed a great problem for me. After scouring the menu, I settled on a veggie omelette nestled in between super-ultra- bacon-omelette and fried-potatoes-and-fried-bacon-omelette. Those aren’t actually the names of the dishes, but I’m almost positive that they provided meals of that sort. My parents ordered the newly introduced fish and a side of spinach with their meals, as did my grandparents. Said side-order of spinach was priced at 2.99 a person, yet was only a spoonful. This was not surprising to me, yet my mother was taken aback! Complaints provided by my loud mother ensued, and I gave the waiter apologetic looks.

The next day we went to the mall. I am terrible at shopping and hate it with a burning passion. I browsed through the stores in search of a prom dress, and ended up finding one at BCBG for a remarkably low price. Trying on clothes and searching for a specific article of clothing puts a lot of stress on me, so I drowned my sorrows and anxiety with White Rabbit candies that I bought at T&T the day before I left. They are so good, it’s like eating a white chocolate tootsie roll, except the tootsie roll has a strong emotional attachment to your teeth, and refuses to set them free even though the teeth have expressed that it was time to break up. I highly recommend you purchase them.

That night, we ate dinner in a supermarket that had its own buffet. There was a wide variety of food, and it was absolutely delicious. My dad and I were both astonished that a wonderful place like Wegman’s Supermarket could exist in a hellhole like Buffalo. If I am ever forced to go back to Buffalo, I will at least know where to get wonderful food, so Wegman’s has my seal of approval.

My father, sister and I left the next day at half past twelve, which was a beautiful decision, as there were no line-ups at Customs. We got back to Toronto at two thirty, and I went over to my friend’s house to wash his dog.

My mom and grandparents got stuck in Customs because my grandma’s permanent Canadian citizenship card was reported stolen, so the guards believed that she was being smuggled into Canada. Bah! Americans!  Overall, I’d rate my experience a 6/10 because I got a decent story out of it and a prom dress. I’ve deducted four points because it looked like Sudbury, Oshawa and Detroit had a love-child and named it Buffalo. Gross.