Greetings from Canada, Maria Eduarda!

Leandro (Paty’s brother), Taisa (Paty’s sister in law) and Duda (still inside mama's tummy)

Every week we share with you stories we have been going through. This is the way we found to share our happiness with other people. Live in Canada is simply amazing and we have no reasons to miss Brazil, although we love our home country.

However, when we decided to live abroad we knew that we would miss some events we consider very important, like some of our friends weddings, the sixtieth anniversary of our dads Gabriel and Elson, the holidays with our families… Whatever, it is part of the game rules, eh?

Besides, today, while you are reading this post, the world will have received another little person: Maria Eduarda (Duda), our first niece! She is Leandro (Paty’s big brother) and Taisa’s (Paty’s sister in law) daughter and, unfortunately, we did not watch her healthy and beautiful arrival…

But OK, no depression! Mr Skype will help us and, hopefully, right after today’s classes we will see her through our camera! Besides, her parents are planning Duda’s first international trip. Guess where? Canada, of course!! Patricia and I are trying to make her a Vancouver Canucks fan, so we sent her a cap of the best hockey team (!!) three months ago. The problem is that Canada Post did not deliver the gift we sent... Maybe Canada Post is a Canadiens or Maple Leafs fan… Who knows… But again: no depression. She will be here soon and we will be more than happy to give her the cap with the label: NHL 2010/2011 Champions!!

Back to Duda’s birth, could we use this post to send our message to her? Here we go: welcome to this wonderful world, Duda. We hope you enjoy every single second! Aunt Paty and Uncle Renato love you! See you soon!

Where Is The Winter?

Our winter: trees without leaves, but pleasant temperatures

Tomorrow begins the fourth week of the semester. It means, we are full of things to do. This week is the due date for 3 assignments and we also have one quiz on Thursday. These 5 days will be busy but we are excited. That is why we came here! 

This post will be dedicated to the winter in Vancouver Island. Well… What winter are we talking about? The time now is 11:20 PM and the thermometer is showing 6 °C. Meanwhile, across the country: Toronto -19°C, Montreal -25°C and Ottawa -27°C.

When we talk to our Brazilian friends about the nice weather, they do not believe. “Oh come on, you are in Canada!”, they usually say. So we decided to write this post to all international students who are thinking about studying here and share the message: it is true, the winter here is not so cold. You can trust the sources: we are Brazilians and our country's average annual temperature is 28 °C.

For you have an idea, on January 11 it snowed a lot, on January 12 we had our 1^st school snow day, but on January 16, the thermometer was showing 15°C. It was looking like winter in a tropical country. We expected to feel much colder here. And to be honest with you, we would like to see the snow falling more often; but as we go to school by bike every day, this weather is much better. :D

Ah! And also it is not true that a nonstop rain hits the island from November to February. It rains a lot, for sure, but the sun comes up sometimes to cheer everybody. This week we will probably see the sun on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Not a bad life!!!

For those who are thinking about studying here: come on, no fear! You cannot go to the beach in December (as we used to do in Brazil), but you do not need to walk around with 10 pounds of clothing! Trust us and have a great week!

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...