Southern Living

and I mean waaay south, like South America...

It's a chilly spring morning, here in the southern hemisphere. It's been a long, chilly winter over the past few months and we're ready for summer! Does that sound funny to you? I follow a lot of blogs, most of them written by gals in North America; my blog feed was full of summer BBQ's, beach trips, and other "summery" events. It always feels a little incongruent with what I'm experiencing here on the other side of the world. Not that we can compare a Brazilian winter with a Canadian one - but it's definitely not shorts weather!

It has been just over four years since I moved to South America. I'm still coming to terms with the opposite seasons. Christmas in summer is just weird for me. Even growing up in Bangladesh and celebrating a "green" christmas; it was still the cold season and we enjoyed bundling up, drinking hot chocolate and lighting candles all over the house. There's not much point lighting candles during Christmas here - they'd get blown out by all the fans we have going on. (More Christmas reflections here)

Our state of São Paulo lies in the southern half of the country, and contains beaches and mountains. Our city sits at an average elevation of 780 meters, so while we definitely experience a humid sub-tropical climate, the altitude alleviates the heat a bit, and it gets quite cool during the "winter" season.

I love this climate. It's a nice moderate one, with enough cold days to appreciate a hot cup of tea and look forward to the hot season; and enough hot days to enjoy swimming, smoothies and ice cream before longing for it to cool down. Since we don't have central air, I enjoy snuggling up with a shawl on a cold day and hearing the fans whirr on a hot one. I light candles in July and wear shorts in January.

Here's a sign we pass every week as we head into São Paulo for church - we are crossing the Tropic of Capricorn.

Now many of the blogs I read are turning to autumn - falling leaves, pumpkin recipes, fall fashion, back to school and the impending winter. It's kind of nice to be looking forward to our summer now - trips to the beach with the twins, getting our baby pool out for the kids to splash in, smoothies, popsicles and ice cream too, of course.

I am definitely more of a hot weather person, so I love our hot, humid summers here and after experiencing a few Canadian winters, I'm glad that here they are more like a cool, rainy Canadian spring. I guess if I could really have my way I'd spend June to August in Canada (summer!) and December to February in Brazil (summer!)

What's the weather like where you live?