Ok so I wasn’t too lazy, and  I did do the cool thing I had planned on doing, which was go to the Biodome!  This place is an environmental museum with four distinct ecosystems:  a tropical rainforest, a Laurentian forest, a St. Lawrence marine ecosystem, and an arctic/antarctic ecosystem.  It is all inside this big dome building next to the Parc Olympique, and was previously used for Olympic cycling events.  Annette accompanied me again, and was extremely patient as I took in every single detail.  I warned her that I would probably take forever, and it was no joke – I think we were there for like 4 hours.

Here’s what we saw.  First was the tropical rainforest, and the creatures that stood out the most there were definitely the vast herds of screaming school children.  In addition to them, we saw this super cool spoonbill bird, which was hanging out with a capybara.  I had never heard of a capybara before, and it turns out they are the world’s largest rodent.  And yet somehow I still really liked him.  He was swimming back and forth, back and forth, so I wasn’t able to get a very good photo of him, bummer.  But check out these piranhas, eh?  There were lots and lots of birds (Rick and Jack, I’ll send you more pics later!) including some ducks and a scarlet ibis, some little black monkeys, some little orange monkeys, iguanas, caimans, bats, poison dart frogs, an anaconda, and more!  We couldn’t find the two-toed sloth though. 

Then it was on to the Laurentian forest, where there were a couple of river otters swimming and playing, a beaver dam that they had a camera inside of so you could see the little guy sleeping in there, more birds and ducks, two Canadian lynx, and a bunch of fish.  They also had some cool endangered plant projects going on, wild leeks and ginseng among them.  This photo is a couple of porcupines sleeping in a tree!  (PS, you weren’t supposed to use a flash, so that’s why a lot of these photos are sub-prime, sorry.)

The St. lawrence marine ecosystem had an aquarium part with lots of cool fish – did you know that flounder and halibut start out like other fish, and then as they get older they turn sideways and their one eye migrates around?  They end up flattened so they can lie on the bottom all camouflaged and have both their eyes looking up, and so they swim sideways.  Weird.  Annette and I were both deeply disturbed at the realization that Flounder from Little Mermaid was apparently not a flounder at all. 

Then you could go upstairs and see the above water part of this ecosystem, with all kinds of sea birds and a tidal pool.  The tidal pool was crazy and kind of creepy, all sorts of multi-colored gelatinous-looking things.  And get this.  A woman in New England won a giant lobster (8 kg – it’s claws were as big as my forearms!) at a bar in some kind of Super Bowl drawing this past February.  She couldn’t bear the thought of eating it, so she found it a home at the Biodome!  The birds in this part were really beautiful – common eiders, black guillemots, terns, and black-legged kittiwakes (yes, I did write those down so I could tell you Rick).

And last but not least, the arctic/antarctic.  Here you go Mom: penguins, penguins, penguins! It was interesting to read about how birds in the north and south poles share so many characteristics and yet are unrelated, because they evolved in similar environments.  For example, puffins and penguins have similar coloring, because when they are swimming, the black on their backs camouflages them from predators in the air and the white on their tummies camouflages them from predators below them in the water.  Cool stuff.  There were 4 kinds of penguins: gentoons, rockhoppers, macaronis, and king or emperors. They were wildly entertaining, and I could have sat there all day and watched them!  They also had a speaker broadcasting the noises of the penguins, and those crazy guys with the yellow tufts sure were a noisy bunch! 

Ok, enough about the Biodome already.   Nate and Brent had managed to get Annette and I in to their evening reception, which was held at the Museum of Fine Arts.  So we went, we schmoozed, we drank wine and ate lots of cheese.  Nate was still determined to go to his #1 brewpub of choice, but was convinced that it was too far away.  So we went to Brutopia, even though he had already been there for lunch that day.  I think the following photos sum up that experience nicely. 

As soon as Nate is done for the day today we are going to make yet another attempt to get to his #1 brewpub of choice, and hopefully we’ll beat the hockey game rush.  And tomorrow we say "Au revoir Canada!" and begin the long haul home!

And oh yeah – GO WILD!!!!!
  

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