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Me and my wife arrived in Vancouver around 11:15PM and it was cold. For us, a couple of Brazilians, it was too cold. It was snowing and the streets were dirty – there was mud everywhere. So, we took a cab to North Vancouver, where we would stay, and stood before the taxi’s windows watching the snow like a couple of dogs outside a butcher shop. (That’s because we had never seen snow before.) A couple of days into the trip and we decided to spend a whole day in Whistler. We looked on the Internet and found out that this was a good place to visit while in BC. We took the bus with some apprehension, since it was snowing, and the roads were really slippery. It took us around 4 hours to get there – we stopped halfway through the trip for a hot, aromatic, sweet cup of maple latte and some cookies. Whistler is this cozy little village with some restaurants, hotels and stores where you can buy all sorts of things – from maple syrup to jackets, from skis to travel bags. We had seen it on pictures and knew it was beautiful, but the snow made everything look even more special. The architecture made us reminisce of a time we didn’t know how to describe: a time of laughter, friends gathered around the fireplace, hot beverages and good food. We walked around the village for a while, paying attention to the people, the buildings, the smells, the sounds. It was really, really cold: -13 degrees Celsius (or 8,5 Fahrenheit), and I had to buy a neck gaiter to protect my face, because the wind was literally burning my cheeks. There were lots and lots of people with skis and snowboards, colorful jackets, wearing cool snow glasses and big, strong-looking boots to face the mountain. We started to hear some music coming from a distance, so we headed that way. It was like opening the curtains to a whole new world: hundreds of people coming down the mountain at full speed with their skis and snowboards, loud rock music and this spectacular view. It felt like I was in a movie. We took the cable car and went up all the way to a place where you can get another cart and go to Blackcomb, the nearest mountain to Whistler. The cable car had the floor made of glass, so we could see the trees below us. Not your regular around-the-corner everyday trees, but pine trees and snow, snow and pine trees. Just like in a movie or a post card. If I was a poet, I sure would have enough material to publish a trilogy just from what I saw that day. We took lots of pictures up there. It was, hands down, the most beautiful, poetic, inspiring place I have ever seen in my entire life. Even the silence was different. I was delighted to see little kids skiing with their families. Even more, the kids were really good at skiing, sliding and speeding like there was no tomorrow. There was this little girl, around 6 years old, calling her father and saying “hey, daddy, look at this”, and then she moved really fast through a short slalom circuit. I was ok with the fact that this little girl already skis better than I ever will, I think. We went back to the Whistler mountain, visited the Olympic Plaza and then got back to the village. Then we had some delicious Italian pasta at the food square before our bus picked us up to go back to Vancouver. When I finally sat on the bus, it felt like I was waking up from an amazing dream. It was the most special place I have ever been to. Whistler is forever engraved in my heart and in my memories.