Saturday Adventure

In the month of June Ryan has a free pass to a lot of the attractions here in Montreal.  It is pretty awesome and we are taking full advantage of it!  Last Saturday we managed to see quite a few things.  First we went to the Olympic Stadium, where the 1976 summer Olympics were held.  This is the symbol of the Olympics that year.  There are the 5 Olympic rings, the large loop above to show the shape of the track, and the smaller loops making a M shape - for Montreal.

Inside the pool area.  Its hard to see but they have 5 pools here.  They use it for big swim events, as well as for the public now.

 Inside the stadium.  They just had a big soccer game and were pulling up all of the grass to get ready for the next event.  It smelt really bad in there!

This is the largest inclined tower in the world.  Its at a 45 degree angle and holds cables that keep the roof of the stadium stable.  We took an elevator ride to the top and were able to look out on the city.

Next we went to the Botanical Garden.  Right after we got there it started to rain, which made it more of an adventure, but we still had fun!  There were a lot more trees and fewer flowers than I had thought there would be, but it was still pretty.  My favorite part was the Japanese garden.

After the garden, we went to the insectarium, which creeped me out a bit.  I don't like insects at all, and of course they were everywhere.  Here is a picture of a gross spider.

The coolest part of our day was the Biodome.  Here is a picture from above, that we took on our elevator ride to the top of the tower.  Looks a bit like a bike helmet, doesn't it?  That is because it was build to hold the bike races during the Olympics.  It is now basically in indoor zoo.  It has 4 different ecosystems, and as you move though them you experience different landscapes, temperatures and animals.

This picture was taken in the second area, the Laurentian forest.  We had just left the Tropical Forest, which was really hot and humid, so this area felt much better!  It really feels like you are in nature. We also went through the marine ecosystem and the polar world.

This guy was so funny!  He swam up and down the glass so everyone could check him out.  I think he loved the attention!

We also saw a lot of fish, birds, bats, frogs, turtles, penguins, otters, monkeys, a porcupine and some other stuff.  It was really neat.