Montreal, October 5-6, 2021

 Tuesday 5 October: I parked my car at my co-worker's house in Windsor and took the train to Montreal transferring in Toronto. It took me all day, but I had plenty to do on the train, and I enjoyed the ride. I arrived at 8:30 PM, and Kristen was there to meet me. We took the metro back to her apartment.  

Wednesday 6 October: Kristen's birthday. We celebrated with breakfast at L'Avenue: Red Shakshouka is a Middle East/North African dish of eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, olive oil, peppers, onion and garlic, commonly spiced with cumin, paprika and cayenne pepper and green shakshouka, a Tex-Mex adaptation of the more common Shakshouka. Definitely the food highlight of the trip!!

After that we walked to the Biodome, originally constructed as a velodrome for the 1976 Olympics, consists of 5 ecosystems in the Americas: The Laurentian Maple Forest,  the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Labrador Coast, the Sub-Antarctic Islands, and the Tropical Rainforest. Each of these contained plants and  animals in their ecosystem, and they were very realistic. One of the spectacular things is that the walkways were at ground level, overhead, and in the case of the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, went under the river.

We arrived at the Laurentian Maple Forest just as they opened and were in time to see the beaver walk past with a stick in its mouth and then dive into the water and swim to its house. Since it is both shy and nocturnal we didn't see its face again.

When  we went around the corner we saw the beaver's feet and tail underwater with the rest of it inside its lodge. 

We also saw otters, puma, and a porcupine sleeping in a tree. The porcupine was well camouflaged in the leaves; we would not have seen him if we weren't paying very close attention.  

The next biosphere was the Gulf of St. Lawrence. First we looked throught a port hole  at the fish swimming; then we walked along a pathway under the river, looking into the huge sturgeon and the schools of fish.  Finally we walked up to the top and looked at the birds swimming on top or perching on rocks and at the fish from the top. 

The Sub-Arctic Labrador Coast  and the Sub-Antarctic Islands were in the same section. While the locations are polar opposite, the barren rocks must look similar.  One exhibit had penguins; the next puffins. 

The final section was the Tropical Rainforest.  We could hear a lot of birds, but the parrots were the most obvious. The river had either alligators or crocodiles. The foilage was, as expected, lush and exuberant. We heard a lot of birds, and we saw capybaras, the largest of the rodent family.

View of Tropical Rainforest From Above

 
Next on the agenda was the zipline. We took the metro to the Old Port of Montreal and walked around the old town for a bit before the zipline opened. 

 The zipline crossed over the Bonsecours Island.  It was a fairly short zipline, perfect for a first zipline attempt and a lot of fun.

After the zipline we walked along the Lachine Canal to the Atwater Market where we had lunch and walked around the market.  We walked back to Kristen's apartment on Rue Fabre Street. On the way we stopped at the Matcha Green Tea store. Kristen had green tea ice cream, and I had a pastry without green tea.  

Dinner was on the balcony from the nearby Krapow takeaway, vegetarian krapow and the special which was a Vietnamese salad.