Niagara Falls, Canada. Driving along the road next to the falls.

I didn't get any pictures of the crowd that was there (I just don't care to take that many pictures of people). But, it was huge, and probably the first truly international crowd I've ever been in. People of every different sort you can think of, speaking in a dazzling variety of languages.

By chance, a couple of Japanese guys stood next to us on the bus trip back from the falls... which pleased me immensely, since I've studied a bit of Japanese. They were jerks, though... :-) One of the first things they did after they got on the bus, as one of them glared down at my much younger sister, age 4 at the time and acting her age, was to call my sister "Baka!" - stupid! - expecting nobody to understand!

But I understood them, hahahahaha! I was tempted to shock them by telling them so, in Japanese... :-) But I wanted to see what else they might unguardedly say, thinking no one could understand. (And besides that, I didn't know that much Japanese - and it might have been embarrassing not to be able to hold up my end of the conversation). Turns out I scarcely understood a word they said after that initial "Baka"... oh, well.

Nonetheless, I probably could have creeped them out had I said "Wakarimashita yo. Zembu wakarimashita!" ("I understood, you know! I understood everything!" - er, at least I hope that's what that means) right when they were getting off the bus. Then they wouldn't have had time to engage me in conversation and figure out how little Japanese I really knew... mwahahahahaha. :-)

But as it was, they escaped without my ever uttering a word of Japanese to them... so they were none the wiser that I had understood anything at all.

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