Meet "Diana & James"

Another great people I met through my cousins in Ottawa, during the Winterlude Festival, where we met Diana and James at the Ice park, we had a freezing dance, on the snow, we tried our best to handle the cold, and Diana kept telling me to move my toes while dancing.. It was tough for me but we had a good laugh and the music was nice so it kept us going for an hour..

And after that we decided to go for a bite and few drinks, so we went to The 3 Brewers where I had the famous Poutine and a nice beer..

Diana was upset cause she couldn't make me"Get Nipped" , where u should have a whiskey shot, you toast in the direction of the parliament, you drink it then you kiss a beaver.. And this way you become an Ottawan, so this wasn't possible at the 3B, but we still had our shots.. And the rest was laughs, jokes, Olympics, and weather.. I like how people always start their conversation with me by asking how I am handling the cold and if I miss the Sun in Dubai.. Which honestly I do, big time, but heyyy.. There is so many other great things other than the cold weather, like that fun night and meeting nice people like Diana and James..  

We did a long walk to reach my cousin's car, said good bye to my new friends and wished to see soon in my next visit to Ottawa and of course invited them to visit Toronto for a weekend where I can take care of them the way they did with me during my lovely Ottawa weekend.

Meet "Pedro"

I think Pedro is the youngest friend I met in a while, he's 19 years old.. He's the cousin of my cousin and he moved to Toronto a week ago from Brazil for 8 months to study English, so for a change I felt I know in Toronto a bit more than someone else and this time I can help or give couple of advises especially how to fight the crazy cold.. We both come from much warmer weather and it s our first freezing winter..

So to keep us warm, my cousin, her husband Fouad, and I decided to take Perdro for few drinks, especially that he was very stressed as it was his first time going away from home for few months, so we went to Earls, but one drink wasn’t enough, so we had second round then a third one and ended with shots where Pedro decided to share with us the tradition in Brazil on how you would toast before drinking a shot, so u start with “A cima”(up) then “A bajo”(down), then “A fuera”(outside) and you end it with “A dentro”(inside) and you drink..

It was tough after a warm nice time at Earls to run outside to catch a cab, but it was a very short ride for me and left the cousins going back to Stouffville after dropping Pedro by his place.

Time with cousins is always fun, and I’m sure we’ll be taking Pedro for more drinks in the coming few month during his stay in Toronto especially that after few drinks, his English becomes fluent. J