[shappy]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Thanks for all the very kind comments.







It's definitely doable as a day-trip. The border was tense, but there were so few people crossing over that we pretty well breezed through (weak Canadian dollar, or the Trump effect? Who knows!), and were there in under 2 hours. Explored some abandoned buildings until we got caught, had lunch & drinks at a brewery, went to the Albright-Knox gallery, explored the Richardson Olmstead campus & Elmwood Village, ate & drank some more, went downtown, got dinner, went to Allentown, got more drinks, left by 10:30 and were home by midnight!

I wouldn't mind spending a bit longer there though, it's an interesting enough place. There are some great, grand old buildings that just kind of pop out at you from the leafy, comfortable residential streets; and cool abandoned sites, the type of which you just can't find in Toronto anymore. There are some good restaurants & bars (though, in good middle-American tradition, even the hipster places had huge portions and the football game on TV), plenty of new breweries, and I was noticing quite a few interesting-looking art spaces & shops. It's just… there aren't any people anywhere, especially for a nice Saturday afternoon in late summer. Okay, we went to some moderately populated establishments, and there was at least a little vibrancy in some of the neighbourhoods we were in (Elmwood & Allentown, specifically), but there were so many places that were just entirely devoid of life, while others felt half-full at best.

Good info and suggestions - thanks!