THE FIRST thing that changed a lot when I arrived in France was the temperature. The day I left Brazil it was a 35 degree winter, and when I arrived in Strasbourg I came across a summer of 15.
When I said that I would come here, many people looked at me with frightened eyes and said to me “it is very cold there! You'll see snow! How is it going to be?”. Well, I ain't be wearing bikinis! "My cousins are going to lend me their coats," I replied, "they said ours are not suited for their winter."
As much as I love winter and from the bottom of my heart I am not missing the Santos summer, my body has lived a whole life trying not to collapse when facing high temperatures and, apart 2 days a year, it never felt below 15 degrees. You can imagine what happens when you arrive at a place where the highest temperature you are going to live with in the next 8 months is the same 15 degrees that you see almost never in the year.
The part I like most about winter is that you can always dress more! And that's what I did. Upon arriving here, my mother and I spent the first 10 days wearing my cousin's ski jackets (you see, ski jackets are for temperatures of -10 in the mountains), and after classes started I wore 3 sweaters and a coat to not look like I was having a seizure.
After three months your body gets used to the colder wheather, and you start to put aside the three blouses ... a single blouse, coat and scarf will do the job and then you see that your adaptation was a success! Until the month of February arrives, and with it temperatures of - 12 with a thermal sensation of -20 come to say hi to you! Do you imagine how cold it has to be to your hand cracks and you start to lose the movement of your fingers? No? Consider yourself lucky!
When I got here and I said it was cold, one of my classmates answered me: “It's still good. You will see that it will be cold when you get home, put your hand under the cold water and the cold water is actually hot.”
That's right my people… that day came, and it stood for two weeks !! Glove did not work, cocoa butter did not work and all my melanin immigrated back to Brazil, because I became white, ya know?!
But that's when a magical thing happened.
The following week it was 6 degrees.
That day I left home and DID NOT FEEL A DEAD COLD. It was cold ... a little cool. But I took a deep breath and felt comfortable at that temperature. This week it was 11 degrees, and I left the house still putting on my coat. When I reached the street and start walking, I didn't feel the need to close my coat. After about 5 minutes on the street, I saw that my coat was open. I looked at it and smiled, remembering the beginning of September, when I chattered my teeth and shivered like a green stick in a "15 degree cold".
A bientôt and, Perdoe o meu francês!
