Niagara Falls (and so does the water)

Today, in real holiday mode, there was a visit to Niagara Falls; this was another long-held wish of mine, and two of the community very kindly took me. The Falls were first discovered (from the European point of view), or at least described, by a Franciscan from what was to become Belgium, as you can read:

The approach to the Falls themselves is not promising:
but the 'American Falls' and the 'Canadian Falls' are truly spectacular. I was told that only about ten percent of the water that ought to flow over the falls actually does so; the rest is diverted for hydroelectric  and other projects, and also to prevent the rapid erosion of the rock over which the water pours. The boat you can see is called the Maid of the Mist, for reasons which should be obvious. Well, the mist is obvious. I don't quite get the maid bit, unless it was the nice young lady in the ticket booth.
The falls have not just international fame, but interplanetary fame, as you can see by these Martian tourists taking in the sights.

Well, this is the view from the Maid of the Mist. All we passengers were equipped with long plastic albs with hoods—very necessary.
as you can see in this picture of Fr Tom and Br Michael, who commented that he had never been so wet in his life before. That's the Br Michael who you saw being ordained Deacon a few posts ago.
He led us then to a splendid, if a bit noisy, restaurant for lunch, with a great view into the USA—the town is Niagara Falls, NY State. Strangely, this spring I met some people from there in Rome.
I asked for a typical North American meal, and this is what I got. It was Ketchup, with a Great Canadian Sandwich and chips. And very nice too.