My first business trip was to Brussels, twenty seven years ago. Last week, as I boarded a plane there after countless business trips over the years, it felt like a lifetime ago. It was in the first years of my career, when I was fighting my way up the corporate ladder and held a fairly modest position of legal advisor in the company I worked for. So far my business trips had been domestic ones, but I dreamt of …
Category: Personal
During my research for an opening speech at a conference in Hong Kong I discovered the first European ever to set foot in China was a Portuguese trader, named Jorge Álvares, as far back as 1513. All of us Portuguese have an interest in Macau, as it was Portuguese territory until 1999, when it was returned to China. A territory located on the Pearl River estuary, it came to the hands of the Portuguese because they began trading there and then …
So it’s over, and we are now on the plane back to Lisbon. After what has undoubtedly been one of the trips of my life, if not “the one”. Even if my feelings about these last days are still in a turmoil and I know it will take some time to fully understand how I stand regarding my past, there are some conclusions to be taken. First of all, this trip was the fulfilling of a dream. For years …
I had promised the boys we’d make the most of our trip to Maputo to go to Kruger Park, a game reserve in the Transvaal province, South Africa, only about one hundred kilometres away. So after a few days in Maputo we set out from the Polana at around 9 o’clock with a very nice driver, Mr. Fernando. Mozambicans are talkative so soon we were deep in conversation with him, learning more about what happened in Mozambique during the …
A friend kindly provided us with his car and driver and on Monday we set out to discover the city of Maputo. First stop was downtown. I looked at the streets’ names but of course they have all been changed; they were mostly named after Portuguese remarkable citizens, having been substituted by characters related to African and Mozambican history and politics. I found the correspondence with the old names on internet so I could recognize them and tell the …
It’s all very “normal”. We come out of the plane through a sleeve and miss the feeling of the heat wave on our face. Our suitcases come out in less than five minutes and there is someone waiting for us with a huge card ” Polana Serena” on it – the name of our hotel. First impressions As we drive away from the airport I try hard to find some familiar sights, but I don’t. I can only remember …
After a night on the plane I feel surprisingly well and energetic. I look at the travel route on the screen map and see we are almost there. In fact the captain has already announced our descent to Maputo. Again the screen shows us the course taken: a straight line from Lisbon to the shores of the Indian Ocean. Almost eleven hours to get us there but then I remember the sixteen hours it took us back in the …
“She” is the title of one of the most beautiful, meaningful love songs I know. An original by French singer Charles Aznavour, some years ago there was a new version by Elvis Costello that has become extremely popular. It is a song that is often played, especially when one wants to pay homage to a woman, and many of us women consider it very special, so it’s not surpriing to hear it in celebrations such as weddings, birthdays and …
Wednesday evening of the strangest summer I can remember. Are we really in July or have we set the calendar wrong? – we ask ourselves one grey morning after another. Last year it was the tragedy of the wildfires – now sadly replicated in Greece – and now there is even a joke on internet about someone asking our prime minister – highly criticised last year because his government was anything but effective regarding the fires – how he plans …
I began writing as a young girl; I wrote a diary, and I kept it to myself, locked in a most secret place, Back then I wrote simply because I enjoyed pouring my thoughts onto paper, and like Anne Frank – whose Diary had impressed me very much – I wrote to an imaginary friend, whom I called Ana. I kept a diary for several years until one day I suspected Granny was going through my secrets and I dropped …