Day 17 - Tuesday, August 18

Last day!!!!
It was so nice to see the sign "Toronto 388 kms" in Sudbury. It it was even better to see the following signs saying less and less kms to Toronto!

The morning driving was amazing. There was lots of fog and the scenery was breathtaking. So peaceful! Northern Ontario is really something!!!!

It is so nice to be back! I can't explain, but it is like coming home. Calgary is a nice city, clean, safe, quiet, but not for us. We love the craziness, loudness and the mess that Toronto is.
As soon as we arrived and opened the car door we felt like in a sauna because of the humidex. It was 29 degrees, plus the humidity factor. Nice!

Enjoy more beautiful images of an amazing early morning in Northern Ontario!!

The traffic also made us go "wow"! Drivers are way more aggressive on the highways...and faster. Side note just to remind you: I am a new recuperated person and don't speed anymore, right?

Anyway, we have forgotten how crazy it is. I can totally see why people from other provinces hate Toronto. It is very different from what they are used to. It takes anyone out of their comfort zone. But for us, it just brought us back! We love it!
You are who you are. You can adapt to places and situations, but your essence doesn't change. In the end, you are who you are.

We got to downtown Toronto at around 2pm and we had a very warm reception from our new host, Michelle (Mike's sister and my sista). She is a lawyer and was all nicely dressed up contrasting to us: both dirty - we hadn't showered for a couple of days- , Mike had a long weird beard and I had hairy armpits (Michelle said she could not even notice it because I can't grow hair properly!).

Anyway, we looked wild! But we could fit in the concrete wilderness that Toronto is.

Second person we saw was our lovely goddaugther Jaqueline. She is almost four and sooo cute! And speaks Portuguese fluently. When we left Toronto, she could barely talk. It's amazing and she just add so much to our happiness of being back. Her mom Meire also contributes for our ecstasy.

Of course, our first beer was in our favourite bar, Ciros (Lansdowne and Bloor, right in the corner of our old house)!

The evening ended very early because we were so tired. But we still had time for two toasts: one for our return and another for Michelle's new house, which will be our palace until we find a place to live!

That's it!

Thanks for enjoying this adventure with us!

Stay tuned, because Gabi is back home but soon she will be on the go again!

Good night!

Day 16 - Monday, August 17

Interviewing Joseph, from Ghana, for my on the road radio stories.

Now we just want to get home (Toronto)! We left Winnipeg at around lunch time and decided we would drive all afternoon and night. And that's what we did!!! Actually, Mike was the one driving at night for 8 hours straight! I could NEVER do that. But he doesn't mind.

It wasn't that exciting day... just driving, driving and driving.

We never found the pot of gold, but hopefully this beautiful rainbow will bring us lots of luck in our new life!

Northern Ontario is absolutely fantastic!

We got lots of rain in our last 2 days of drive. Better now than before.

Wonderful French breakfast with Fe. Thanks for bringing us to such lovely place!

Day 15 - Sunday, August 16

I started the day badly with my first speeding ticket ever in Canada. I have been driving here for 10 years and had never been pulled over by a cop! It happened in Taber, Alberta, urrrgggghhh… I was 93 in a 50 km zone. I know… shame on me! But I can (try to) explain. I was going slowly for most of the highway that crosses the town. But it was Sunday, before 8 in the morning and there was no car on the road. So, by the end of the town, I decided to go “a bit faster” and the police officer – a woman who was probably there just for me – didn’t give me any break. Damage: $325. Oh well, I deserved it! It sucks but it works, because I was on cruise control on the speed limit for the rest of the day and probably will never speed again (I hope cops are reading this blog!!!).

Going on the speed limits through the prairies???? Boring!!!!!!We stopped outside of Regina for lunch at 3pm.

Today I started collecting material for my road stories for Radio Canada International. Hopefully they will be about interesting things on the way from Calgary to Toronto. The highlight, so far, was an interview I did with two boys who are cycling from Vancouver Island all the way to Nova Scotia. Literally, from coast to coast. They have been on the road for 21 days already and plan to get in the East coast “before the snow”. Good luck to them!

This is for my friend Derry Ashcroft (from City TV Calgary). Birtle, Manitoba, is the centre of the universe, at least for him. I needed to take this photo to prove that Birtle really exists. Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to visit the town, but I think Derry will appreciate this photo!

We arrived in Winnipeg at 9pm and after dinner went straight to see Fernanda, our Brazilian friend at the hospital she works as a nurse. It was very nice to see her for one hour. I admire Fe a lot. She is a very strong and determinate woman. She has accomplished a lot here in Canada and now she is probably going back to Brazil to be with her – equally nice – husband Tom. Great people! Fe was working over night but was really kind and lend us her apartment for us to spend the night.

Day 15 balance

Kms:

Hours: 13

From to: Lethbridge, AB to Winnipeg, Manitoba

Bad news: a $325 speeding ticket

God news: seing Fe
Hotel: Fe's beautiful and cozy apartment

Day 14 - Saturday, August 15

Hangover again! We left a bit late, at 2pm, after a great breakfast with Nick and Martha. What a sweet girl! Nick, right on!

We crossed the ferry to Vancouver Island at 4pm but I slept through the whole ride. I was so tired! In mainland we got lost and ended up at the Canada-US border, close to Seattle. I would not mind drive an extra 180 kms to visit this American city, but we are running out of time. We turned back and took us a while to find the right highway: bad signing.

Finally, highway 3 was a very beautiful and winding road with big trees, mountains and lakes – very BCish. I gave up driving at around 11pm, but Mike decided to keep going. I fell asleep and he drove until 7am next morning, to Lethbridge, Alberta.

Balance day 14

Kms: 1,250 (WOW!)

Hours: 17 hoursFrom to: Victoria, BC to Lethbridge, AB

Animals: many deer at night

Hotel: our car for FREE!

Day 13 - Friday, August 14

We woke up in Jessie’s Bed and Breakfast. She is a lovely 79 year-old lady. We had the pleasure to have breakfast with her and other guests this teacher woman and her father, Edgar. Edgar was 99 years old and almost all independent and very vivid man. He is a writer and still writes for his column and is very proud to say that he “gets paid for it”.

After breakfast we headed to Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. But on the way, we stopped at Telegraph Cove, a very pretty village that used to be, like the name suggests, the telegraph town a century ago. Today they are known for their tourism -they have one of the best whale watching tours in the island - and their fishing. We could not do the whale tour because it would take too long (about 4 hours) but we visited the whale museum, with its incredible skeletons. We walked around, had a bite to eat and observed some bald eagles flying. Beautiful little corner of the island!

We kept driving along the coast, through many pretty coastal communities and stopped at the Miracle Beach. Mike went for a swim and I just sat there, at the sun, contemplating the place’s beauty. Beaches here are very different than the beaches I am used to in s Brazil, but they are equally beautiful. Mike saw a seal in the water.