Road Trip to Toronto and Niagara Falls, Ontario!

Megan Reed
Advertising, Marketing & Management
2011 Northwood University

A trip to Toronto and Niagara Falls began as not even a thought to consider. Upon spending some quality time with my friends Ronald van der Spek, Zachary Hackett, and Kathleen Federspiel, all Northwood or former Northwood students, the idea can be credited to Ronald as he brought it up as casually as possible over lunch between the four of us.

Ronald was an international student at Northwood last year. He is from the Netherlands and came to study for one year to progress his education internationally. He became a close friend to my friend Kathleen and I within the past few weeks. At lunch, as Ronald asked about a random trip to Niagara Falls, she and I looked over at each other and pondered such a spontaneous trip.

This kind of spontaneity was expected of Ronald by that time. He had been to and from Chicago randomly throughout the last three weekends and he loved to explain to us how he’d been taking random trips and making impulse decisions like this one. He was leaving for home, the Netherlands, in less than a month and he wanted to go everywhere and experience as much as possible while he was still here.

We agreed to go to Niagara Falls with Ronald despite any costs, as we believed the experience would be worth it in the end. That didn’t mean we weren’t going to try and look for ways to make the trip less expensive. The weekend before we left we celebrated our friend Rahul Babbar’s graduation from Northwood. He was going back home to Toronto. Before we could even ask if we could stay with him for our trip he offered with no hesitation.







I didn’t know a trip to Toronto, compliments of my fellow international Northwood students, would be such a cultural learning experience. Ronald told us many things about the Netherlands that we would have previously had no idea about. He informed us that it is illegal in Netherlands to own a gun, and there are very few trucks and SUV’s in their country. Beyond the knowledge Ronald shared with us, our experience staying with Rahul exposed me more to Indian culture than I had ever been exposed to before. He is from India, and staying at his house included meeting his mother, who was more than happy to host us for our trip. She cooked us chicken curry, chicken kabobs, and made us traditional Indian tea. We walked in to their home and Indian Idol was on the television. When it wasn’t World Cup that was on TV, it was Cricket, and we got to see India beat Sri Lanka to win the Asian Cup for the fifth year in a row.



Walking through the city of Toronto, there were groups of World Cup fans who were selling vuvuzela’s on street corners, G20 protesters, and an all around diverse group of people and cultures. To top off the trip, we went to a Dutch bar called Betty’s to celebrate the Dutch 2-1 win over Cameroon in the quarterfinals of the World Cup. Watching Holland win their match among other Dutch fans was an incredible experience and truly one of a kind.

Leaving was bittersweet, as we had to say goodbye to new friends and begin our six-hour drive back to Midland, MI. Rahul and his family were fantastic tour guides and we thanked them for being that as well as wonderful and hospitable hosts. The goodbyes were pleasant, the drive was smooth and we found ourselves back in Midland in what seemed like a very short time. Had it not been for my international friend, I would not be able to say I have been to Niagara Falls or the city of Toronto. The stay was fantastic. I met great people along the way and experienced amazing things that opened my eyes even more to this incredible world around me.