Our Travels: Buffalo, Niagara, Canada

From Buffalo to Lackawanna to Canada, we visited Niagara Falls, city hall, the botanical gardens, a basilica, a Shakespeare play in the park, and a family members log cabin in the woods. It was a wonderful weekend spending time with S's family as well as visiting some locations that he's grown up with.
Doesn't that map room at the city hall remind you of something you'd see in a Wes Anderson film? The entire city hall was designed with Native American motifs in Art Deco materials. If you saw my Instagram portrait in front of the elevator, you will see brass used to frame the doors, with triangle and corn carvings reminiscent of the natives. Brilliant, right?
The botanical gardens were lovely and humid. Even though it wasn't an escape from the warm New York day outside, the shade that the plants provided was really calming and serene. S was in his element in the bonsai section. We always like the idea of having many bonsai plants in our home, but they are quite sensitive, and pretty pricey. We haven't had success with our previous bonsais. 

The basilica was gorgeous; it reminded me of the ones in Italy with the shape of the ceiling and all of the paintings and sculptures. It definitely made me miss Italy. We hope to take our next international trip next year to Italy. I've already been to Rome, Naples, and Florence, but will have to revisit so that S can see those places and the art. We hope to make Italy our international trip next year and I am so looking forward to it! For now, I can watch EssieButton's trip to Rome to sate my Italian appetite.
We ate all the "traditional" Buffalo food that S grew up with including pepperoni pizza (it's totally different than the NYC pizza I grew up with), Texas hots hot dogs, and beef on weck. Of course, there was Tim Hortons coffee too, which I had on my last trip to upstate NY.
All of the houses in the area reminded me of the old Victorian house that I grew up in. Front porches, two or three stories, long and narrow. The shame is when people don't keep up with repairs and painting and the maintaining of the property. These beautiful old houses with memories and history in their walls are turning into dust. I can only hope that our generation will become a little handy (with the help of Pinterest and home renovation blogs like Door Sixteen) and will keep these historic areas alive.