Walking through the streets of Buenos Aires, glancing sideways through windows, I wonder if the clothes in the stores are summer or winter collection, and if we are soon to have sales or if the season has just started.

After 3 years I am still totally confused about the seasons. And of course, the fact that only last week I was walking through the streets in Belgium, wondering the same thing but finding the opposite season doesn’t really help my confusion. So really, will I be wearing boots or sandals next month?

But even apart from what to wear, we associate the seasons with months. May is spring (or autumn), July is summer (or winter), etc. so you know that when you are in spring, it should be around May (October), depending on where you are. You know November is a bad month up north, that there might be snow in February and so on.

Even birthdays are associated with the season. It is weird, if all your life your birthday was in summer, to now celebrate it in winter.

So I suppose you already get where I am going to. When you ask me what month we are, I have to think. And no, I am not just doubting between October and November. I am thinking about April and May as possible months as well. Eeeehm, but yes, we are November, this is definitely spring.

Confusion is even worse when you are talking to northern hemisphere inhabitants. They don’t ever think about the fact that in the south seasons are different. When they tell you they will visit you ‘in spring’ and you ask “which spring? Yours or mine?”, They look at you with incomprehension, and answer, “Well mine, of course”.

And every year when, wearing summer clothes, I see the first Christmas decoration, my first thought is “OMG! Now they are loosing it! This is waaay too early!” Until I realize -yet again- that we are not august, but november…