Castles, Hot Chocolate, and Casinos!

As we slept in and Victoria was able to grab snowboarding equipment for me from a friend, we had a later start today. Thus, we raced to the Castle Casa Loma to get inside before closing time. Upon arrival, all we could see were hundreds of kids!

At the parking lot, the attendant stated that though the castle was open for at least another half hour, they stopped selling tickets about five minutes ago. Wanting to make it inside, we parked the car and tried our luck. Interestingly enough, perhaps because of the literally hundreds of young children, there was chaos and no ticket taker at the door, so...off to explore the castle we went!

Finished in 1914, the castle was constructed with a Gothic Revival-style and originally served as the home for Sir Henry Mill Pellatt, a Canadian soldier and financer who brought hydro-electricity to Toronto.  The castle was simple with basic rooms any castle (or even house) would have. We discovered the hundreds of children were apart of the Girl Guides of Canada (equivalent to the Girl Scouts of America). It was adorable as each Girl Guide wanted to tell each of us how many patches they had and what they were awarded - too cute!

Mary's Sitting Room at the Castle Loma

We drove down to the Distillery District, a great date spot, and had hot chocolate at Soma. Their Mayan Hot Chocolate mixed Venezuelan chocolate, cinnamon, Australian ginger, orange peels, Madagascan Vanilla, and Soma's secret blend of spices - delicious!

The Distillery District

On a last-minute whim, we decided to drive the hour-and-a-half down to Niagara Falls! A fan of waterfalls, I could only describe it as an enormous, gorgeous hold-in-the ground waterfall (in the best possible way)! Being that it was cold and we only wanted a few quick pics, we parked the car, ran out to snap some photos, and jumped back in after seeing the most powerful waterfall in North America. The sight was one to see with the lights reflecting in the water; the air was one to smell with the cool, fresh scent!

Niagara Falls - gorgeous!

The rest of the night was spent in the casino with about three full hours spent playing Casino War. No one walked away with any major winnings, but it was good stuff nonetheless!