True Makings

The year was 1996, I was about to turn seven. I will never forget the smell getting off the plane. Canada was dry, here it was wet and salty. I had never heard of Portugal, but my parents said we were on an island. The ocean looked like a lake, but it tasted differently. It was also salty, everything was so salty. I remember the two men who came to get us at the airport, they were my dad's friends, Peter and Tony. They drove us around to the beach house we would be staying at. We were hungry so they got us a local soda called Kima, it was made out of passionfruit and bubbles. It was sweet and a soft orange color. We got a ham and cheese sandwich on something called a bolo levedo. It tasted sweet like cake, but it was supposed to be bread. Peter explained that they made it in an old wooden oven and that's why it looked slightly burned on the outside. I liked the cake with cheese and ham. The language was loud and it sounded like everyone was angry, but they smiled at me and my sisters. Tony explained that they had never really seen blonde hair before. All of the adults touched our hair when they spoke to us, "loirinha", they called us. It meant little blondie, That word would forever describe us, and "estrangeira", which meant foreigner. They used that less because there weren't many "loirinhas" who weren't "estrangeiras". At the time not many people spoke English, they only spoke Portugueeny, as my sisters and I called it. Our beach house was white and they had geckos running around every where. Their tails come off when you touch them and the tails keep moving! I had never been to the beach before, not the ocean beach kind, but I knew the sand in Sao Miguel was different, it was black! The island was created from a volcano and was still surrounded by volcanic rocks, so the sand that washed onto the beach was black, and warm from the sun.
I'd never been to a place so small. I could see the ocean from the car window wherever I went. There were outlooks everywhere, most with picnic tables around for people who liked to eat with a view. Everyone seemed to know each other. But we didn't. We were just the "loirinhas". The sun was always bright, even when it rained, which was half the time. It was "tropical weather" they said. I had never seen a paradise look so normal, but foreign at the same time. The wind was always saltier and the people were always more tanned than anywhere I had ever been. I don't know how I ended up there, but I didn't want to leave.