Lisbon: What a way to live!

It is the end of the afternoon in the beginning of October while writing this, I am sitting here on a nice roof terrace in a pleasant 26 degrees with a cheap but great cup of coffee. Today was a busy day, the surfing session in the morning and the class at university I just came back from made me a bit dull, but the day is not finished yet. Dinner in one of the many great restaurants in the city and after that a few drinks in its nightlife are on the agenda. While I am describing all this I realize that it won´t be that hard to justify my choice for Lisbon as exchange destination, life in this city is not too bad. I would love to give you an insight in my ´Erasmus-life´ in Lisbon.

My Choice
The choice for a semester abroad came a bit later for me than usual, when I got the chance to go on exchange in the 3^rd year of my bachelor Business Administration I wasn´t really paying any attention to it. Later, when I looked into it a bit more, I realised that I couldn´t let this chance slip. So I kept 2 courses open in my minor to make sure that I could add a 7^th semester to my bachelor. The choice for Lisbon as destination was made pretty quickly, I liked Portugal´s climate and the city of Lisbon was recommended to me by lots of people. Since being here (from the beginning of August), all of these positive messages about Lisbon have become clear to me!

Let´s go!
The adventure began in the beginning of August, university wouldn´t start until the first of September but since my apartment (that I share with a Swiss and another Dutch guy, both met via Facebook) was already available for us in August I decided to travel to Lisbon on the 5^th of August already. Housing for students in Lisbon is pretty good, if you are early there are a lot of great rooms/apartments available for low prices, really low actually compared to other European capitals.

The main focus of the first few weeks was exploring the city with my roommate, the first month was over in a flash. What I discovered quit quickly is that some prejudices about Portuguese people are actually based on some truth. They are indeed not always on time for informal meetings and not really precise or effective, being a typical Dutch guy that was a bit hard getting used to. But I do have admiration for this Portuguese way of life too, living with as few stress as possible and just enjoying every single day of your life is something that I (and I think most Dutch people with me) can really learn from.

In the end of August Lisbon began flooding with students. The student community in this city is really big, I don´t know the exact number but with something like 20 different universities the number of exchange students is pretty big. This leads to the fact that every day there is something to do and always someone to do things with, there are 2 different organisations whose sole purpose is organising activities for all the exchange- (or: ´erasmus´) students. Still after 2 months I meet new people every day and the list of things that I still have to see and do in this city is long. You will never get bored in Lisbon, with its countless viewpoints (Lisbon is also called ´the city on 7 hills´ and the altitude differences are therefore high), beautiful neighbourhoods, buildings, churches and terraces it is a city where you can easily spend a whole semester. As a football fan, a visit to games of Sporting CP or Benfica is cannot be skipped, tickets to the games are pretty easy to get and not that expensive. The next games for me are the Champions League fixtures Benfica – Napoli and Sporting – Real Madrid!
Then of course the beaches, the beautiful beaches around Lisbon are very well reachable with public transportation, traveling time ranging from 30 minutes to an hour for most of them. I won´t be spending as much time as before there since the weather is going to become a bit less good in the next month. It will begin to rain a bit more soon but still it won´t be that cold, in October the temperature won´t drop below 20 degrees. In the winter, the temperature during the day can drop to about 10-14 degrees so that´s still pretty good compared to the Netherlands.

”No exchange semester is, of course, complete without traveling, and that´s also a thing that you can do well here”

Portugal itself is great, I have already been to Porto and to the amazing beaches of the Algarve and there are trips planned to the Azores (an island group in the Atlantic Ocean) and to Madeira. Also tickets to Madrid or Seville are not too expensive from Lisbon, and even Morocco is very reachable.

Let´s also talk a bit about the main reason I came to Lisbon; my studies. On the first of September I began with classes at my University. The quality of the available universities (for students from UvT) in Lisbon is excellent. Católica (my university) and NOVA are both top business schools with great rankings in both Europe and the world. The lessons at Católica are a bit different that I am used to; classes are smaller and more often mandatory and the professors are mostly people with a lot of experience in business. This gives the courses just a different dimension and it actually suits me well. It is often said that the quality of classes on exchange is way worse, but that is not the case in here. Moreover, only the fact that I work together with so many different nationalities is a great experience already.

I hope I have been able to give you a nice and small insight in my first months in Lisbon and an impression of the life as an Erasmus-student in Lisbon as a whole. But it is of course just an impression so I recommend everyone to explore this city on your own, it doesn´t matter if it´s a small city trip or a whole exchange semester, it will be worth it!