“Why are you going to Burlington?” the Niagara Falls Canada Customs officer asked, somewhat dubiously, after we stated our plan to spend the following night there before returning back home to Seattle. “The night life”, we joked, before giving the actual reason of attending a friend’s birthday party. Burlington, a small community of just under 200,000 people on the western-most extreme of the Greater Toronto Area, is known more for its transportation infrastructure than its night clubs.

We’d flown into New York state and were crossing at Niagara Falls, where we’d spend an evening visiting other friends, before continuing to Burlington the next day. Flying into New York avoided the several-hour Friday night commute traffic from Toronto to Niagara Falls, and made for a slightly more interesting trip by crossing the Rainbow International Bridge over the Niagara River. 

Our room for the night at the Embassy Suites, perched high above the Niagara River, had a fabulous view to both the Canadian and the US falls. We watched as dozens of guests, clad in bright red raincoats, embarked on frequently-departing boat trips into the mist.

That evening, we had a great dinner at Morton’s Grill with Dale Hagen and his partner Liz Huha. James and Dale worked closely together at the IBM Toronto Lab on the DB2 database team in the early 1990s. We’d not seen Dale since we moved from Toronto to Seattle in the mid-1990s, and it was wonderful to meet Liz, and to catch up after all those years. After dinner, we returned to our room to enjoy a different view to the falls, with a light display and an impressive fireworks show.

We transferred to Burlington the following morning to attend the 80^th birthday party for our dear friend Jacob Slonim, who we also know from our time at the IBM Toronto Lab. Jacob headed the Center for Advanced Studies there, and was thesis advisor for our Master’s Degrees. Jacob moved to Israel years ago, and we’ve kept in touch. After not seeing him at all since our Toronto days, this was our second meeting in five months. The first was during our trip to Israel earlier in the year, and we were thrilled to get a chance to see him again when he returned to Ontario for his 80^th birthday. We had a great time at the party, and got a giggle out of one of the attendee’s geography-lesson T-shirt.

Following the afternoon birthday party, we had dinner on the terrace at Isabelle Restaurant in the Pearle Hotel overlooking Lake Ontario, where we were staying for the night. We then spent the evening. Canada Day was approaching, and Maple Leaf Flags bedecked the buildings. We particularly enjoyed strolling through Town Square, a modern development designed after a turn-of-the-century village square and filled with shops, pubs and restaurants. At the end of the evening, we took in the dusk view over Lake Ontario from our room at the Pearle Hotel before returning back to Seattle the following morning.