Oh, Happy Days!

Patrícia, Adriana and Carol seeing our wedding album

Last week we hosted our first guests directly from Brazil: the couple Edu and Dri and their beautiful kids Carol and Guga. Paty worked with Dri in a Public Relations company and Edu was one of her bosses at Vignette / Open Text. Definitely, we had a great time with them! 

First of all, we showed VIU facilities to the family, since Carol is willing to study abroad. As good Canada lovers, we have recommended the country to her and to all those people who expect good universities and a wonderful country. 

After the VIU tour, we had planned to skate with the children or to have lunch at The Coombs Country Market. But, guess what? In Nanaimo, some restaurants and some tourist attractions shut down in wintertime... It does not matter, though. Other good restaurants are still open and we went to a good one to eat some pasta. Then, they came to see our home sweet home in downtown Nanaimo and, of course, talk about everything! 

And with them, more good news: they brought our wedding video!! It was wonderful to remember that day... Even better was to watch all that happiness at the dance floor and to listen all the beautiful testimonials from our friends and relatives.  

Well, the end of that day could not be better. We ended up watching the snow falling again in Nanaimo. And much stronger than other days. At 11pm, we were already wearing our pajamas when a guy showed up, right down at Maffeo Park, building a huge snowman. We did not resist: the snow was inviting us to go outside. We went down, played a bit and took some pictures with the snowman. Of course, we recorded everything. You can watch the video: http://tinyurl.com/6d5zs2o and enjoy our pictures right here: http://tinyurl.com/5u7thx8. It was pretty cool. 

The next day was also awesome: a white town out of our windows and the message of "snow day" at VIU´s website! Wooohoooo! We like to take classes and stuff, but playing with the snow is much better, eh? And so we enjoyed that beautiful sunny day!

Discovering more about Canada…

Canadian national mascot: a dangerous beaver! We loved it!

Back to reality! Yeah, after three weeks hanging out as you could read on our last posts, now here we go with the second semester of the MBA!

But, you know, first week… We are still getting accustomed to the MBA’s fast pace again. During our second semester’s first week we did not spend a huge time for our required readings, so we had time to read different things. While Paty is enjoying a book written by Chico Buarque, a Brazilian songwriter, I am reading the so funny book “How To Be A Canadian”, written by Will Ferguson and Ian Ferguson.  

And it has been so useful. Some days earlier, I asked Paty: do you know if Canada has a French version of its National Anthem? Silence… We did not know. The book taught us that the answer is “yes”. Just to check, we accessed Canada’s official site to confirm. And, hey, Canada not only has the English and the French version, but also a Bilingual version. Check it out: http://www.pch.gc.ca/pgm/ceem-cced/symbl/anthem-eng.cfm

But the ultimate learning for me is that Canada has a strong, fierce, powerful, sumptuous, scary, and beautiful national mascot: the beaver! Not a lion, not an eagle, not a tiger… Blargh, so common-place! Yeah, a beaver! Why not? Sounds awesome! Really, that is why we love Canada. Always unique!

Well, besides, we also have learned that Canadians use to say “eh” at the end of a sentence (not “huh”), Canadian currency has a nickname (loonie), in New Brunswick there is a Giant Lobster Statue, Alberta has a UFO Landing Pad, and so on!

If you know some curiosity about this wonderful and unique country, please share with us!! Leave us a comment! See you! 

Coxinha, Pastel, Beach and Hockey: Great Mix!

Maintaining a Brazilian tradition... we jumped seven waves at midnight on December 31^st 

Happy New Year Everyone! Well, well, the New Year has arrived and here we are planning what we are going to do in 2011 and wondering if 2011 will be as nice as 2010 was. 

2010 reached its end the same way it got started: very funny! Both of us went to our friends Karl and Mariel´s home to spend the last 2010 hours. Mariel and Paty had one mission to accomplish: cook coxinha and pastel, some traditional Brazilian finger foods. In the meantime, Karl and I had another tough mission: talk about music and drink Brahma, a brazilian beer! All of us succeeded: Mariel and Paty´s coxinha and pastel were amazing. Besides, Karl and I... talked and drank!

After our amazing dinner and nice chat, we hosted two more guys: Vince and Caroline. Paty and I had not met them before and, you know, it is automatic to say "nice to meet you" when we meet someone, right? Yes, but, in this case, it was really nice to meet them! What a funny couple!! As soon as they arrived, we told them that, at midnight we were going to jump over seven waves in the beach: a tradition that Brazilians maintain to ensure that the New Year will be filled with good luck. So, at 11:50PM we walked down to the beach. We were facing a -4 degrees temperature, but nobody cared: we had a beautiful starry sky! So, just after 2011 arrival, we jumped over seven waves! OK, after that I could not feel my feet, but, yeah, we did! After that, more beer, more dancing, more chat, more laughs. What a great New Year´s party! You can see some pictures on this link: http://tinyurl.com/277jkow

On January 1st, Paty and I woke up eager to enjoy the Christmas gift that Mary and Helge -- Karl´s parents -- gave us: the tickets to watch our first hockey game in the rink and on the ice level! Definitely, we had a great time that day. Nanaimo Clippers won Malmö Redhawks by 2:1. It is so nice to watch the game so close and after that we become a little more Canadians, as you can see on these pictures: http://tinyurl.com/3848g44

Our year has started very good! Now it's time to go back to school...

We wish all our readers a wonderful year in 2011 and good luck in this new semester!  Stay warm...

What a Weekend!

Paty and our Classic Christmas Turkey: It Was Delicious!

Although we missed our family, friends, and the Brazilian Sun last weekend, our first Canadian Christmas was stuffed by too much fun.

We got started with our traditional dinner at December 24th midnight. We had a wonderful stuffed turkey with pasta. A Canadian red wine joined us. Great stuff! You can check some pictures from our dinner at Christmas Eve here: http://tinyurl.com/2dusomw

Besides our traditional dinner at midnight, we had planned to have another Christmas dinner. Now, invited by the the Mejiholm family and respecting the Canadian tradition, we would eat on December 25th. However, our host was not feeling well, so our dinner was postponed to December 26th, the Boxing Day.  No problem in waiting, we were rewarded with good conversations, lobster, beef, potatoes, vegetables and Canadian red wine! Again: wonderful! Pictures from our second Christmas dinner are here: http://tinyurl.com/27vsg2y

Moreover, Mejiholms gave me the book “How to be a Canadian”. According to them, I will naturally become a Canadian after reading that. They also gave the cuisine book “Make It Tonight” to Paty: wow, more food! Also, they gave us the tickets to watch our city hockey team live on January 1st!!! On ice level.

During our waiting for the December 26th dinner, we discovered that Canada celebrates the Boxing Day. First of all we thought that it was a day with some Boxing fights, but it is not. It is not a violent day; it is just the day after Christmas, when the stores offer great deals to their customers! We mean… very good deals! But, you know how students live, right? Tight budget, so we did not enjoy 2010 Boxing Day. We are already looking forward to the next one.

Also, we are looking forward to our first New Year’s holiday in Canada. Can you find out what are we going to do on that day? Guess what… Eat, drink, and party with our friends! On the first 2011 post we will tell you how it was!

We will finish this post thanking you for following us all this time. To be continued next year! We hope you all have a wonderful 2011, like our 2010!

Having Fun with Almost no Money!

Sunset at Neck Point Park last Thursday

This post is to our readers who are like us: students with no car who are sticking around here for the holidays and who have a few bucks to spend with leisure. We prepared some tips about what to do in Nanaimo with no huge spendings.

First and foremost, this city has amazing parks that should not be visited only in the summer. Last week, on Thursday, the weather was awesome: a nice sun in the sky and it was not so cold.  So, we took the bus number 2 (at downtown) to Pipers Lagoon & Neck Point Parks.  And who said that we would not go to the beach in December? We heard the sound of the waves and felt the sea breeze at both parks. Pipers Lagoon is an 8 hectare hiking recreation park for sightseeing, the waterfront park trail follows a rocky coastline. The Neck Point Park is a lighter version of Pipers Lagoon to the south. A developed trail runs through most of the park, with boardwalks and lookouts. Better than describe the parks is to invite you to see how the scenery was sensational last week: http://tinyurl.com/2bperuq.

After a long hike the hunger comes, so we took the bus 2 again in front of Neck Point Park to Woodgrove Centre. In front of the shopping mall, there is an Italian restaurant named Milano's. They have a great promotion. For CAD 17.77 (HST already included) you can dine and win a ticket to watch some movie at Avalon Cinema. It is necessary to choose the dinner from a specific menu, but there are several choices of pastas, pizzas and sandwiches. A good deal, especially considering the good movies playing now. We watched “Conviction”, with Hillary Swank. The movie is based on an interesting true story. A good choice. 

About the restaurants, another tip is to pay attention to the coupons. Nanaimo News Bulletin always brings a coupon from MGM, a restaurant located at Nicol St, downtown. The December special is “Dinner for 2 only $12.95”. We did not use our coupon yet but we should use it soon. It is a great deal, is not it?

About other attractions, we also loved the Westwood Lake. We lived near there when we arrived here. We shall visit the lake this week to check if the edges of the lake have already begun to freeze. Well, those are our tips for this week. We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas. And enjoy Nanaimo, our Harbour City.

Top 5 Oddities

Does anyone watch this channel?

Uhuuu, the semester is over! And it was great to finish that with the exams at… the gym! Yeah, at the gym! It sounds weird for our Brazilian friends, but here in the University is normal. The instructors book the gym and run the exams right there. It means, it is possible to calculate the return on initial investments of a particular project right on the goal line… 

For sure that was one of the weirdest things we have experienced in Canada. But there were others and we would like to share with you the top five so far. Number one, as we already wrote: exams at the gym!
Number two: educative cartoons. We know that children should watch educative cartoons and series. In Brazil we have good ones. However, in Canada we saw the most intellectual children targeted TV series ever: “Dino Dan”, a series combining cartoon and live action. “Dino Dan” follows the adventures of a ten years old palaeontologist-in-training... This little guy does not spend his childhood playing hockey in the streets or playing with his friends. He spends his time talking to his friends about dinosaurs… Ok, nice, but… but our son will watch Spongebob.

Number three is about Canadian customs. Why there is nobody in the streets at 5 PM during the Fall? OK, it is dark and cold, but strange. It is also interesting to notice that the restaurants usually are crowded this time. Our stomachs are still getting accustomed with this. In Brazil: we used to have lunch at 1PM, 2PM. Our dinner? Between 9:30PM and 10PM! 

Number four is about a Nanaimo-ite tradition running over the summer. Every single day, during the summer, some guys wearing 1920’s clothes and moustaches prepare cannon and shot it. At noon. Why? No idea… 

Back to the TV “shows”. Number five. By far, the weirdest thing we have seen here in Canada and in our lives. I do not know if you readers will believe, but here we go: there is a TV channel called The Frame (# 165) that has only one show. We can describe to you the "show" called  Shaw Firelog. It is an active fireplace. Yes, that is it: some wood burning in a fireplace. Sometimes it appears a man putting more wood in to burn. What else? That is it. All days, all evenings, all the time! Unbelievable! We laughed so hard when we saw that! This is the top five so far. If we find out some new thing, for sure we will let you know!

Oh, and for those readers who are writing their final exams this week: make sure you are taking care of you! Study hard, but have lunch, have dinner, sleep well, have a chat with your friends… Have some fun watching the Fireplace Channel!

Countdown to Winter Break

Mount Washington: here we go!

First and foremost, we would like to say: thank you very much, anonymous! Unfortunately we do not know the name of our attentive reader who answered the question that we posted last week about the fights during hockey games. Now we understand more about the rules of the game and we sincerely thank your attention!

This post will be short. Why? We spent the last week and this whole weekend preparing for the final exams, which begin this week. Talking about week of final exams, this is one of the things that we have to adapt here. In Brazil, there is no final exams week. Generally we have a hard end of semester, but professors use to schedule the exams in the last few weeks, not only one. This week we have two tests on Thursday... Six hours taking tests are very exciting, aren't it? But let's stop complaining because after final exams, the well deserved holiday starts.

Three weeks to rest and enjoy the Canadian winter... We are very anxious to experience our first Christmas with cold and snow. In Brazil, people grow up watching movies that always associate Christmas with low temperatures and snowmen and now we will live this reality, impossible to be experienced in our country, since there, temperatures can reach 30 to 40 °C in December. Certainly we will miss our families, but it would be a nice experience.

It will be my first time cooking Christmas dinner. In Brazil we celebrate the Christmas Eve by staying up until midnight. At midnight, gifts and presents are opened and the Christmas dinner is eaten by the whole family. We will keep the tradition, opening our gifts and eating our Christmas turkey at midnight! We have learned that Canadians sleep early. ZZzzzzzzzz So I think that our neighbours will not be awake to smell our Christmas turkey that will be ready at midnight. 

Beyond our first Christmas dinner for two, we are also looking forward to enjoy the winter at Mount Washington, a ski resort just about 100 kilometres of Nanaimo. It will be one of our Christmas gifts!

I already wrote too much. I will stop here because I still have to study a little bit today... See you!