My dear friend I’m on the plane back home and I realize that only a week ago I was arriving, tears of emotion and excitement blurring my vision of your island, my favorite place in the world. And time went by so fast, so damn fast, slipping through my fingers like grains of sand, that I could no more hold in my hands than all those years ago when my holidays in Madeira were a month long, and even …
Tag: Madeira
This story is about a girl. Teresa. It begins in 1975, when she’s only twelve. She’s just left her homeland, Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony, now riven by revolution and madness. In the wake of civil war, fear and terror crack open Teresa’s idyllic childhood. Even the family pets act distraught. Granny no longer tends to her roses. Everybody starts sleeping in the same room, afraid of knives in the night. They must flee the land they have …
This story is about a girl. Teresa. It begins in 1975, when she’s only twelve. She’s just left her homeland, Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony, now riven by revolution and madness. In the wake of civil war, fear and terror crack open Teresa’s idyllic childhood. Even the family pets act distraught. Granny no longer tends to her roses. Everybody starts sleeping in the same room, afraid of knives in the night. They must flee the land they have …
Never, as on December 31, do I feel this urge to be in Madeira, my favourite place in the world and the very best place to spend New Year’s Eve. It’s not only the fireworks, but the festive environment as well, the friends, the traditions – all of them contribute to the most unforgettable New Year’s Eve of all. I do have unforgettable memories of this night of all nights in Madeira! I never stop dreaming that one …
We all have a very special place in our hearts; it may be the house where the whole family used to get together for those seemingly endless holidays of long ago; it may be the beach where we started going in our childhood and where we still meet the same friends and acquaintances, summer after summer, spending hours talking of our respective lives during the rest of the year; or it may be the hotel where we have spent the …
When we were young there was no expression such as “BFF” (Best Friends Forever) and it’s difficult to tell, when a friendship begins, how long it will last, but after almost fifty years of friendship, I believe we can say we are Best Friends Forever. When we were young Only yesterday when you organised the usual family reunion that happens whenever we come over for holidays, I was telling someone we were classmates for only two years, back in …
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 …
If you have followed me for some time you know by now that I love summer in all its manifestations – even the heat doesn’t bother me. Unlike many Portuguese, who show up with black shadows under their eyes due to lack of sleep on hot summer nights, the heat suits me – in fact it is the cold that makes me want to hibernate and only wake up after the long dark months are over. However, as much …
My friend Luisa’s daughter Carolina was getting married, and Nuno and I went to Madeira for her wedding to her boyfriend of several years. Some weddings are an obligation, some are fun, others are so boring you just want them to be over and a few, a rare few are simply magical. Carolina’s wedding belongs to the last category. And were it not for the fact that the weather was not ideal, it would have been perfect. Still, after some …
When I look back to that New Year’s Eve of thirty five years ago I cannot help thinking it was the best of my life. Because it closed my year of “living dangerously”, a year when I mostly did what I pleased without any attachments or obligations; a year when I felt free, wild, independent; because it was spent in the best place to spend that very special night when you go from one year to another – Madeira; and …
