Hello fellow Canadians.
I am thrilled to say that I am finally coming back to Burns Lake. I am actually writing this editorial on the train from Prince George to Burns Lake (and by the way, taking this train has become my favourite thing in the world; Northern B.C. is truly phenomenal).
Soon after landing in Prince George, one of the passengers on the plane complimented the flight crew on the “amazing landing,” and then he apologized for taking too long to leave the plane. And just like that, I felt that I was officially back in Canada.
Changing countries is certainly a weird experience. You hop on a plane and 10 hours later you’re in a completely different place with people speaking a different language.
One minute you’re selling coconut water at the beach in Rio and the next you’re taking the subway in Toronto and it’s -5 C (alright, I wasn’t actually selling coconut water in Rio, but I needed to illustrate my point).
I’ve only been back in Canada for 48 hours, and for the first 24 hours I accidently spoke to Portuguese to at least five people.
Not surprisingly, I’ve also been feeling way colder than everyone else. By now Canadians are well used to the low temperatures, especially because it’s March and it’s finally starting to warm up here. But for me, it was a drop of almost 30 C (and leaving my winter jacket and boots in Burns Lake probably wasn’t very smart as I almost froze to death passing through Toronto and Prince George).
But besides getting used to the low temperatures and different time zone, it’s really good to be back here! In fact, while I was away I was counting the minutes to be back I am excited to be working in Burns Lake again.
I am also surprised at the random things I missed the most while I was gone.
For example, I really missed having brunch on the weekends. People in South America don’t understand the concept of brunch and I unsuccessfully tried to explain this to my mother several times.
‘Is it breakfast? Is it lunch? I just don’t get it,’ she would say.
I really missed watching Global News’ six o’ clock newscast.
I also strangely missed going to the movie theatre in Canada. Don’t get me wrong, there are movie theatres in South America too, but it’s not the same.
In here you can get to the movie theatre half an hour before the movie starts and there will be games, previews and people talking about new releases. In South America, I would get to the cinema 20 minutes before the start of the movie and there would be nobody there and nothing to see before the start of the movie. Plus the movies there have subtitles and they would change the name of the film to something completely unrelated to the original name (so I can’t comment on the movies I watched in the past year because I don’t know their actual names).
I realize these are all random things, and that’s why I was surprised to miss them so much.
It was a long journey to get back to Canada and it took a lot longer than I expected, but thankfully it all worked out and I am extremely grateful that publisher Laura Blackwell and Black Press – company that owns Lakes District News – were able hold my position while I was gone.
I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again!
