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!