I have few friends that decided to spend a year abroad and sent me news confirming their expectations. To be honest, I was so excited because I imagined it as a great week or few days of integration where you have multiple activities with other Erasmus student, where you visit the city, the university, the beaches, everything that will help you to make friends in this new country. When we all arrived on the 6th of September, the dream fell down. The purpose of the day was to make a little presentation about the university and then have a visit tour of the campus. As no activities were programmed every student came naturally to the other from the same country, so the same language. As I choose Erasmus year to focus on English and learn Portuguese, I was disappointed because IADE, the partner university, didn't encourage us to meet people from different walks of life.
The only positive points of this first day were : some student associations attended the meeting, they can help you if you are searching for a phone contract in order to have a Portuguese number and internet to send WhatsApp to your family and friends. Besides, we learned that the beginning of the first semester will be in almost three weeks from now, so... Let's enjoy the city !
