#Travel to Canadá: Passports e Visas

by Fabi

After buying the tickets, the next step was to go after the documentation to enter Canada. To travel, we would need passport Canadian visa and a consent letter to travel abroad signed by the Leticia's father, since he would not travel with us.

Passports: As we were planning to travel to Disney soon, we had already received our passports in May 2014. The procedures at the time were very easy. I followed the instructions on the website of the Federal Police, and had no problem. The official site for information on costs and procedures to get the passport in Brazil is this: http://www.dpf.gov.br/servicos/passaporte/requerer-passaporte 

Visas: Brazilians need tourist visa to visit Canada. Our flight was direct to Canada (Sao Paulo-Toronto-Ottawa), then we would not need any other visa to transit through other countries (some flights stop in the United States, and if so, we would also need a US visa).

You can get the Canadian visa online. The first step is to access the site of the CIC  (Citizenship and Immigration Canada - Click here) and fill out the application form for tourist visa. 

I filled out the whole form and submitted for analysis. After a few days I received a notification email requesting new documents. I entered my application and found the following request:

"Parent Authorization to Travel: Signed letter of authorization from the non accompanying parent (s) authorizing child travel to Canada. Must be accompanied by a copy of their passport or national id clearly showing their signature ".

Besides the documents usually required, they requested a letter of authorization to travel signed by Leticia's father. As we reported in the questionnaire that we would travel just two of us, the Canadian immigration wanted to be sure that he was aware. I did the letter in English, based on a model obtained on Canadian Government site (Get here in PDF or DOCX). 

Finally, the Leticia's father signed the letter and I took it to notarize, scanned and uploaded in my application on CIC's website. A week later I received the confirmation e-mail: Our visas had been approved !!!

The whole process took about 30 days. Very fast! It was an indescribable emotion get our passports with Canadian visa s stamped! We had almost everything to embark!

Brazilian authorization letter to travel: In addition to passport and visa, there's a Brazilian model of consent letter to child travelling without parents. The model can be obtained from the Consular Portal  (Click here). 

This authorization is very important for children who will be traveling unaccompanied or without the company of one of their parents. Without the authorization, signed and notarized, children do not board on the plane!

Well, these are my tips regarding the documentation for the trip. In the next post I will tell how we prepared to face a -20° C cold in the Canadian winter !!!

Kisses,

Fabi

#Travel to Canada: Dates and tickets

by Fabi

So we decided! We were going to Canada! We would play in the snow!

Now it was time to achieve the dream, starting with choosing the best date and flight tickets research.

Winter in the northern hemisphere begins on December 21 and ends on March 20. As we wanted to play in the snow, our trip should be within that period. Additionally, the dates had to coincide with Leticia's school holidays and my holidays at work.

First, we were thinking about travel in early December, spend Christmas there and come back on New Year's Eve, but two things made us change your mind:

1) the risk of "winter delay", with the first snow falling just at the end of our trip. If that happened, we would cease to enjoy the best of Canadian winter! (How would we play in the snow, if we had  not enough snow? lol)

2) the high price of tickets to our return to Brazil, because the period close to Christmas and New Year is much sought after by tourists. Prices were three times higher in those days, and our financial reserve for the trip was tight.

So we decided it would be better to go in January 2015. This month, the snow would have already appeared and certainly the Rideau Canal, the main winter tourist spot in Ottawa, would be open for skating. In addition, tickets prices for this destination fall far in the second week of January, which would make all the difference in our small budget for the trip.

Skateway on the Rideau Canal

With set dates, we started researching flight tickets and finally found a sale with excellent prices on the site "Decolar.com". The passages were from "AirCanada" with departure to Ottawa on January 18th and back to Brazil on February 5, 2015, and the flights were short, with only one scale of 1 hour in Toronto. Price, dates and perfect flying conditions, then ... We bought!

We purchased the passages in early September 2015. There was about 4 months to make all the arrangements for the trip. Three things were essential: passports, visas and winter clothes! 

I think I wrote too much for today, then in the next posts I will tell you a little more about how we solved these needs !

Kisses,

Fabi

#Travel to Canada: The decision

by Fabi 

"Frozen" tells the story of the sisters Elsa and Anna, king's daughters in the small kingdom of Arendelle. Elsa, the eldest, was born with the gift of creating ice and snow with her hands. This power is very beautiful, but is dangerous if not controlled, what makes Elsa lives in loneliness to protect Anna.

The cold, snow and ice are constant in the film and even being shown as dangerous (and even sad somerimes), cause huge fascination for the audience. The beauty of the frozen world and the powerful magic of Elsa delighting everyone, making us believe the idea of ​​eternal cold is not so bad!

Well, for Leticia it was no different ... like many girls of the same age, she fell in love with this movie. She watched again and again and soon she began asking me to play in the snow. She wanted to slip on the ice and make snowmans, angels and snowball fights! And this desire also started to grow on me, since I had never seen snow before.

Then a good friend who lives in Ottawa, Canada, invited us to visit her in the winter when we surely could realize that dream. I was saving money to make another magical trip, to Disney, so I asked Leticia what she preferred to do first. As you probably imagine, she said "YES" to "Do you want build a snowman?".

So we began preparations: choosing the best date, searching flight tickets, passports, visas ... and winter clothes, of course! With everything ready, we look forward to the day of the trip, which was wonderful, full of magical moments for both of us. We already were very united, but we strengthened our complicity and friendship with this experience.

 

Amazing, priceless, unforgettable, unimaginable!

In the coming days, I'll tell you a little more of that trip. I hope that our experience can help those who also want to realize the dream of knowing a frozen kingdom!

Do you want to build a snowman? So be sure to check the next posts!

Warm hugs,

Fabi

Just dancing :-)

by Lelê

As I told you in my last post, I love singing since I was a little baby. I sing all day, the whole time: at home, in the car, playing ... I carry my life singing! lol lol

But singing is not the only thing I like to do. My passion is for music, so I also love to dance! I do ballet lessons since age 4. Sometimes my teacher tells me to close my eyes and feel inside my heart what the song is saying. She always takes a bit of the class to let us dancing like us want, just following our hearts. I really enjoy it!

One day, I arrived too early to class and there was music playing. I could not resist, I put my ballet slippers and went dancing until the class began. No trial, no choreography, just dancing ...

My mother filmed a little bit and decided to also share this passion with you . :-)

"Canal da Lelê" was created recently, but my love for music...

by Lelê

"Canal da Lelê" was created just recently on Youtube, but my love for music is quite old!

When I was a little baby, I loved listening to my mother singing lullabies songs and I soon began to imitate her.

This video was recorded when I was only three months old. As my mother sang, I laughed and tried to follow the melody.

Supercute, isn't?

"Do you want to build a snowman" *FROZEN COVER*

by Fabi e Lelê

"Do you want to build a snowman" was the first cover video we made.

We recorded this video just for fun and shared with family and friends. The video was more successful than we thought and inspired us to create the channel "Canal da Lelê" on YouTube.

In only six months the video hit over 1 million views, encouraging us to make new cover videos! S2

Fun fact: The current picture of my profile on Google+ and Youtube was taken on the day we recorded this video :-)

Frozen and the Power of Love

by Lelê

Hello, friends!!! As you probably have noticed, I am passionate about the film "Frozen".

Elsa is a beautiful girl and loves so much her little sister Anna, that she is capable of give up her own life to protect her. On the other hand, Anna is sweet, funny and so brave, that she can face a tenebrous winter to have her sister back. Together, Elsa Queen and Princess Anna of Arendelle taught us that love and union are always the best solution for any difficulty!

The ice power is strong, but LOVE is much powerful!

Besides being a film with a beautiful message, "Frozen" is a wonderful musical, as only Disney knows how to do. I quickly memorized every song and singing them all the time, dreaming sometimes I was Anna and sometimes I was Elsa. So my mother used her power of love and turned my dreams into reality.

I can be Anna, can be Elsa, I may have powers and I can even be Anna and Elsa simultaneously! And you can be too!
In the world of imagination, everything is possible :-)