Do You Believe In "Happy Endings"?

Yes, We Do!

First and foremost, I am using the word “ending” just because this week we finished our internship and finally completed our MBA Degree! However, even after our graduation, we are going to continue with the blog. So, please follow us next year, we promise to continue sharing nice experiences here.

Do you know why I used the word “happy”? What do you want after graduation? How about a nice job to put into practice everything you have studied in the past months? So… Guess what? I have recently got a job at RBC (Royal Bank of Canada). I am going to start work as an Account Manager on January 9th, 2012. And Renato got a job offer earlier this week from another large financial institution to work as a Personal Banker, now the company is doing the reference checks and all bureaucratic stuff. Competitors living under the same roof!

So we are here to say thank you to everyone who contributed to make the program such a great success!  What a ride! We have a friend who summarized very well this amazing experience. So we make his words our words:  we really did enjoy the MBA program and we are very proud of what we learnt and the friends we made. Awesome skills acquired. Definitely one of the best decisions we have ever made. 

Thanks for following our blog this year… We will be back in full form in January! Renato and I hope that your Christmas will be enjoyable and may the essence of Christmas remains always with you. Season's Greetings!

Get out of Your Shell!

Come on, get out of your own shells!

It is not new to say that Canada is a multicultural country, that is easy to walk for 5 minutes and hear 3, 4, 5 different languages being spoken, and blablabla. That is why Patricia and I were wondering: hey, how do Canadians feel about it? How do Canadians feel about people speaking English with a strong accent, a lot of people coming to live here and “take their jobs”...

Sometimes I think that Canadians try harder to adapt to foreign people than foreign people try to adapt to Canadian way of life! Sorry, but for me it sucks! Come on, we are living on their land!!! If Canada is a safe, developed, and highly organized place to live is because Canadians worked hard to make it. So, I just think foreign people should be more grateful to that and try to adapt themselves to Canada! Personally, I would not feel happy seeing, for example, store signs and restaurant menus in Spanish instead of Portuguese in my country. 

Looking for further information on that, I found that, of course, Canadians are not very happy about the behaviour of some immigrants here. Even though 80% of Canadians agree that “immigration has a positive impact on the economy of Canada” and 73% of Canadians disagree that “immigrants take jobs away from other Canadians”, 66% of Canadians agree that “there are too many immigrants coming into this country who are not adopting Canadian values”. Yes, 66%! Every 2 out of 3 Canadians believe that the immigrants are not adopting the national values (you can find further information on this research on this link for Canada Immigration and Citizenship website: http://goo.gl/vcayO).

I know that some nations have wonderful and rich cultures which are worthwhile to share with the world. But come on!!!! Canada has a beautiful and rich culture too. And that is available to whoever wants to learn it.

Let me give you an example. You are having friends over your home to celebrate Christmas. Then they start to speak a language you cannot understand a single word. Besides, they tell you they are not praying to thank God for everything because that is not what they do on their country! Would you enjoy the meeting? I would not and I would ask: “why did you come here then????????”.

So: come on, get out of your own shells! Catch up with Canadian culture, catch up with Canadian way of life! We are on their place, my friends!!!!!

Thanks for reading!

And the Long Awaited Day Has Arrived!

Last Friday, the temperature began to fall and during last weekend, we have felt, for the first time in our lives, the temperature of -19°C (feels like -25°C) Brrrrrrrr…What a unique experience! Now, it is time to share with you some truths.

First and foremost, your hair can freeze! I went outside with a wet head and…yes, my hair froze. So the first tip (especially for girls) is: you should not go outside with a wet head on a cold day, your hair can freeze causing it to become brittle and could cause damage...

Secondly, it is harder to breathe when it is so cold! It is better to wear a scarf or face mask over the nose and mouth, it can help to warm the air before it enters the lungs. I also prefer to breathe through my nose on these days. 

These were the two things that caught our attention. However, we are not afraid of the cold!  So… with dry hair and face masks, on Saturday afternoon, we walked in downtown Calgary and we were impressed with how many people went outside! 

As soon as we arrived at home, we open the door of your balcony and something really funny happened! We could not resist the opportunity to record a funny video! Check this out: here is what happens when you open the door of your balcony when thermometers are showing -19 °C with wind chill of -25 °C! The video is in Portuguese, but you can understand anyway! I am pretty sure! 

Sunday was also cold, but sunny! OMG! What a wonderful day! So I said to Renato: We should go outside and play. Of course he accepted the invitation! We took our snow sleds, we went to Confederation Park and we were in heaven. It was so much fun to go down the mountain at the park! You can check our pictures and some videos.
When you have a chance, please remember or enjoy for the first time the simple joy of speeding down the hill, wind whipping your hair. Thanks for reading! Stay warm!

Trick or Treats?

Trick or treats?

Last year was the first time Patricia and I spent a Halloween in North America. And this October 31st was the first year we spent our Halloween working, which was a different experience.

In Nanaimo, we were very impressed because people are very excited about the Halloween and houses are very well decorated, which is very different from our reality in South America.

In Brazil, there are, generally, some isolated Halloween parties happening, normally sponsored by English schools. But no big deal, no kids asking for treats. Also, in the companies, nobody cares about the Halloween.

Here, it is an important festivity, like we used to see in the movies. So even in the workplace people enjoyed the festivity, offices are decorated with carved pumpkins, scary masks, well designed cobwebs…  In my work, I could see so many people dressed up for the Halloween!! That was a shock; I was not expecting to see people wearing black dresses, masks and so on… The weirdest part for me was when I was going back to the office after lunch. I was walking after a lady whose black hair was a complete mess. I started to think “wow, this is messy, this is horrible”. But things got better when I saw a spider (a fake spider I hope) climbing her hair. Yeah, things got better because I realized that her hair was a fake one (hopefully).

Well, it took some time for me to get used to the Halloween environment, but I think I got it. Next time I see spiders climbing ladies hairs I will be fine!

And we did enjoy seeing the kids dressed up walking around asking for treats. Unfortunately, because we live in a building with no kids, nobody showed up here saying “trick or treat?”. Or, well, maybe fortunately because we did not have treats in our house!!

We had fun in our second Halloween and we are looking forward to the next one. And, who knows, maybe next year Patricia and I will go outside, knock on neighbours’ houses, and try to get some treats.


Thanks for reading!

The Weather in Calgary – Part 1

Our week forecast: chilly and sunny

The title of this post is The Weather in Calgary – Part 1 because, for sure, we are going to write some posts about the weather here. Coming up: Part 2, 3, 4 etc…

As soon as we decided to move here, we started to hear everybody's opinions about the weather in Calgary. Yes, everybody has something to say about the weather here. We have heard thinks like: “Calgary has only one month of nice weather during the whole year”; “in Calgary, it can snow even during the summer”; “everybody has a truck in Calgary, because there is too much snow”; “it is cold but sunny there”, and other thoughts.

Well, we are not experts about Calgaryan weather. However, after 2 months living here, we can share some thoughts about it.

First of all, the weather has been nice since we arrived, so it is not true that Calgary has only one month of nice weather during the whole year. We can guarantee at least 2 months! LOL!

Regarding the snow during the summertime, we talked with some Calgaryans about snow falling in July. That is true, some friends, who live here for a while, confirmed this fact. But when it happens, it is just for one or two days: the temperature drops, it snows, and after some days, it is 30°C again.

Everybody has a truck in Calgary? Come on… It is pretty common to use the public transportation, especially to go to downtown. Today Calgary is the second most expensive city to park in North America, behind New York City. And we heard that when it snows, more people take public transportation, because they do not feel safe to drive with snow. Let’s wait and see… The good point is that bus stops are completely covered, which makes it more comfortable to wait for the bus during the wintertime.

Yes, we have sun! That is so true. In two months, it rained only four days. After living in Nanaimo for 14 months, this is a reason to celebrate.

And finally, of course here is colder than in Vancouver Island. In the last weeks, in the morning (when we are going to work) it is always O°C; and in the evening (when we are going home) it is around 13°C. According to forecasts this week will be colder!  However, as it is not humid here, O°C and even -3°C in the morning is not so bad. The same temperature in Nanaimo feels like colder!

So, this is our first weather update.  Snow is coming, so the post The Weather in Calgary – Part 2 will be published soon. Thanks for reading and have a great week.

Different Thanksgiving Meal!

Our delicious Thanksgiving meal

You may remember that last year, we had our first Thanksgiving dinner here in Canada at our friends Karl and Mariel’s place, in Nanaimo. We had a great time talking with Karl’s family, listening to good music, and eating turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, pumpkin pie with ice cream… Wow! Canadians have a great way to thank God!!

Well, from that day until this weekend so many things happened as you guys have seen by reading our posts. So many good things and some tough moments which made us stronger. To summarize: Patricia and I had very good reasons to thank God again for 12 amazing months. A Thanksgiving dinner would be perfect, but we changed our minds and we thought that could be even better if we had a Brazilian lunch to celebrate.

That is what we did! We went to a Brazilian “churrascaria”, which is a restaurant which serves barbecue, the real Brazilian barbecue. Well, we can tell you that we had a very good time there and I will tell you why. The Brazilian “churrascaria” normally works this way: you have a table with some salads, rice, potatoes, polenta, beans, and stuff like that and you also have waiters who keep bringing you fresh meat until the moment you say something like “please stop, for God sakes, I am so stuffed!!”. At the “churrascaria” where we went to this weekend, they had 11 different meat types and, wow, we ate a lot. We have never been in a “churrascaria” here in Canada, so we were really missing the Brazilian barbecue. After that lunch, we walked for a while and had a quick nap to help our poor digestive systems, but it was really worthwhile!      

Very good way to thank God for everything He has given us and a good way to ask Him to help us out here in our path in Canada!

And since our digestive systems are still working on the Brazilian lunch that we had this weekend, Patricia and I also enjoyed this beautiful fall weekend with a walk at Confederation Park, a breathtaking place right in the back of our place. Check these pics out and let us know if this is not a breathtaking place. We hope you readers enjoyed the photos and also your Thanksgiving weekend!

God bless you all!!! Thanks for reading and see you soon!

To Flame or not to Flame, That is The Question!

Flames 4 - 2 Coyotes

This week, after one and a half year living in Canada, we had the opportunity to watch our first NHL game. A supplier of TVI (the company that Patricia is working for) gave the company two tickets  for a pre-season game, where the Calgary Flames would face the Phoenix Coyotes, in Calgary. And Patricia's boss asked here if she would like to go to the game! Of course! 

When we first publicly mentioned that we would watch the Flames against the Coyotes, the controversies started among us and our friends… They said: how can you guys switch from the Canucks to the Flames in just a blink of an eye!? You bandwagon jumpers, you gypsy horses…

What our angry friends did not understand is that Patricia and I were only picking a second favourite team. Now Patricia has the Flames as her second favourite team and I have the Canucks as my second favourite team!! 

We had some fun answering those “accusations” on Facebook and went to the game! When we dropped off the train and saw the arena, we could only think “wow, what an arena… beautiful”. So, we had our dinner and got into the stadium to watch the game! You can see some pictures here. 

Patricia and I, then, started to look for our seats and when we finally found those, we got so excited. We would watch the game so close to the ice… About three metres away from the ice! Unbelievable!! The game was perfect: Flames defeated the Coyotes (4-2), we saw former Canucks player Raffi Torres so close, we had so much fun that night… 

So, yes, the Flames are my new favourite team. And it’s not only because of that game, but also because of the way Calgary has welcomed us and because of the way Calgarians have embraced us… I feel like I am here for a long time. Calgary and Calgarians are treating us very well and taking care of us like Nanaimo and Nanaimoites did. 

You know, people say that I cannot cheer on the Canucks and on the Flames at the same time, but I will! I am now a Flames fan, but I still love the Canucks because of all the good moments that Luongo and company,  Nanaimo, and BC provided me! I know that cheering on the Flames and on the Canucks at the same time is like cheering on Brazil and Argentina at the same time, but… I will try!

Thanks for reading! See you!