Buffalo, NY

I promised you something exciting, and I’m about to deliver.

Buffalo! Amazingly, the origin of the name of this city is unclear — there are a number of contesting theories, with no clear winner. Also interesting is that the fictional Gotham City was modeled after Buffalo, with its abundance of Gothic architecture.

The drive to Buffalo from Pittsburgh was beautiful. It was a wonderful day and the scenery did not disappoint.

Someone please make a tasteless joke about the objects! Panoramarific! Waterboats! Even better than that stock image I used at the top of the blog!

I even passed some Amish dudes driving their carriages but didn’t get a picture. Instead we waved to each other. I did manage to get a picture of one of the signs warning drivers to watch out for them though (a bad picture at that).

Watch for Amish dudes!

Next thing we knew, we were coming up on Buffalo (we didn’t know anything for several hours evidently).

Coming up on Gotham City, I mean Buffalo.

The first thing we did is hang out with a Couchsurfer I’d met for lunch in Omaha on one of his stops, a flight attendant by the name of John Crandall. John is a cool dude and gave us the grand tour of his area; we walked all around, ate some nice burritos from a great place called ETS in the park, and had generally great times.

How long is the timer on this cam-- oh.

John was also helpful in finding a host and people to record. Unfortunately the dude who I’d planned on recording in the evening lost his keys while biking somewhere and had to spend the remainder of his evening hunting for his keys in the dark. Not fun.

So instead I met a girl who likes donuts!!

Esther and the Peanut Donuts is a pretty good band name.

This picture was taken the morning after hanging out with her and our host Justin and several other awesome peeps (including another Couchsurfer who was also staying there that night) late into the night around an outdoor fire.

We stayed up late chatting and somehow she got on the subject of donuts, and we realized that it was important that we wake up early in order to eat some donuts. So we did.

As an aside, I’m suddenly curious if the “bon” in “bonfire” means “good.”

“I was curious about that too!” interjects Attractive Girl. “So I looked it up on the Online Eymological Dictionary! It says:”

1556, from M.E. banefire (1483), originally a fire in which bones were burned. Johnson mistakenly derived it from Fr. bon “good.”

Thanks, Attractive. So the answer to my question is no. But at least I can put the blame for my erroneous guess on Johnson. Darn that Johnson.

And, that was that. No one got recorded in Buffalo, sadly, but we did have a great time, eat some good donuts, and… see Niagara Falls.

NEXT: Niagara Falls. Don’t stay on the edge of your seat though, it’s not good for your posture. Also don’t bate your breath, just breathe normally. You’ll feel better that way.