My office messenger lit up. It was from the manager.
Ring. Ring. Without delay, I place my headset on my ears.
"Yes hello," I answered.
"Hi Gladys, I just want to make sure you got what I said the other day during the stand-up meeting. Tomorrow is a day off as a thank you from the company."
"Yup got it." The message is clear as day. In fact, the hubby booked a hotel room and purchased tickets to the Biodome Montreal the same day the news is relayed. ^.^
Yay for a super long weekend. No work from Thursday to Monday. (But actually, I'll still be working. Haha.)
We could have flown somewhere out of the country or perhaps to Banff, Alberta. But due to current travel restrictions, we decided to explore places in our neighborhood we haven't been to.
Traveling to Montreal from Ottawa takes 2 hours. A day trip would have sufficed for our short excursion but the hubby promised the little boy they'd go swimming so we booked a room for a night.
Drive to Montreal
As the husband turned the car ignition on, rain showers fell. No surprise there. It was forecasted days ahead. But I wasn't worried. Our activity will be indoors anyway.
We didn't have trouble finding parking at the Olympic Park where the Biodome is. But we weren't prepared for the 5-7 minute walk to our intended destination. My fault. I didn't do research in advance. It was only there we found out the place is huge. There were other venues and sports arenas in the area too.
The Montreal Biodome house the diverse ecosystems of the Americas. We visited each region in the following order: the Laurentian forest, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Labrador Coast, the Sub-Arctic Islands, and the tropical rainforest.
At the Laurential forest viewing area, there was a live video feed of a beaver inside a hole. Less than a minute after we arrived, it decided to come out. Our little guy jumped in surprise.
Seeing the huge aquarium at the Gulf of St. Lawrence, our son put on his imaginary Octonaut gear and prepares to go on a mission with Peso and Quasi and Captain Barnacles. (If you don't know who these characters are. They're from a children's show called the Octonauts.)
I have been to many aquariums before, but it was the first time I took notice of a sea anemone. (Again, thanks to the children's show Octonauts.) Its tentacles -- the part that sways with waves -- look like it was carefully arranged inside a small sack. As if the tentacles are the anemones themselves. Then the base (the sack-looking part) is made of some other material. Like a turtle and its shell.
We had a blast in the sub-arctic region. Well, of course, the penguins are the stars of the show.
It's fun to watch them waddle, dive, knock on the glass walls with their beaks, and shoot out of the water landing straight up.
It is the smallest ecosystem out of the rest in terms of space. But I was impressed the walls are laid with real ice. Yes, that white wall in the background photo of my hubby and son below is made of real ice.
And the rocks look genuine too.
In case you're interested, my outfit details are on this link.
We culminated our tour by climbing to the highest point of the building to get a vantage point of all the ecosystems replicated in the Biodome.
We were tired from all the walking. On our drive to the hotel, the showers turned heavy. We couldn't go anywhere after check-in so we had our dinner at the restaurant lobby. It was an expensive meal though. Nah, that's okay. It's not like we get to eat like that every day. Thankfully, we got a nice view of the city from our room. We were on the 10th floor.
If you're looking to visit The Biodome in Montreal, click their website here.
You have an awesome time then. ;)