AndrewsBlog

It’s been almost a week since my last blogpost, sorry about that. I’ve been quiet busy the last couple of days. So I’ll give you all a little update.

Friday: 1st erasmus party

Last friday was the first erasmus party, which i think every erasmus student in Lisbon attended. The place was so packed and hot it was like the concert room of the Vooruit in Gent.

Before going to the party we had a nice warming up at our apartment. There must have been about 25 people in our kitchen. We invited a couple of friends and had a good time. I’ve uploaded my photos on flickr.

We left to the party after midnight. People had to wait an eternity to get this erasmus-lisboa card which in the end wasn’t even mandatory. After that my memories are a bit blurry (i blame the whisky)

Lovely weekend with my darling

This weekend Nathalie was here in Lisbon. It was great to see and be with her again! We went to Carcavelos beach on sunday. I forced myself to stay in the sun to get a little tan. (Nathalie is so tanned from sitting in the sun in Coimbra, so I had to catch up a little). She’s starting to look like a portugeese chick. Quiet hot if I may say so. It was a beautiful day without clouds on a big sandy beach. I had a wonderful time with mi daarling!

I was sad that I had to say goodbye to her monday, 2 weeks until I see her again. Then I’ll go to Coimbra and visit the city and maybe go to Porto too. Thanks for coming liefje! Aai miss joe allreddie & sorry van de voetbal-distractie!

University work

With all this relaxing I almost forgot we have to got to classes on mondays & wednesdays. We have this exciting assignment for the product innovation course: we need to conceive a new product or innovate an existing one. That’s basically what we’ll be doing for the whole semester. So monday we had to come up with 5 new product ideas. I’ve heard some really funny stuff and some ideas with potential. Mine were quiet crazy too: A cocktail mixing machine, a self heating spoon for easy ice-cream serving, using your cellphone as a key, ..

Costa da Caparica: surf paradise

Tuesday Alec convinced me to go with him and Sascha to Costa da Caparica (usually called Costa Caipirinha). I liked how we were driving by the palm-tree streets in a car full of sand with cuban music.

Costa da Caparica is a nice beach. The waves were nice and there were a lot of other surfers. While Alec, Sascha and his german friends were surfing (or at least trying to) I took some nice pictures of crazy guys riding the waves.

We had a tosta mista (croque monsieur) at the beach bar before we headed back to the university for Sascha’s class. Going to the beach in the morning before you start working is nice. I am really starting to enjoy the lifestyle here.

2nd erasmus party @ Mercado

That night, after a few 2 euro caipirinha’s from our usual warming up bar, we went to take a look at the 2nd erasmus party. It was in a smaller bar than the first party, which was nice. This party was much more fun! After a few drinks I somewhat forgot I had to give a presentation in class the next day.

Don’t worry, the presentation went quiet alright today. Time to get some sleep now

Classes started

Classes started this Monday. We’re following some nice courses. I guess Product Innovation is my favourite. It’s a creative course heavily influenced by the MIT university.

Master courses at Nova are very open and practically oriented. We’re also attending Analysis of Industry and Competition, Logistics and Supply Chain Management and International Business (if our home university approves).

New cultures

It’s very interesting to meet and talk to people from other cultures. We’ve met some nice German guys (like Sascha and Thore) , eastern european people (we’re living with Polish, Slovian, Czechian and Slovakian people) and Swedish lads (Per Anders is a funny guy with a horde of female swedish friends).

Today we were watching the Champions Leagues games in a Spanish bar down our street and met a lovely Scottish couple. Extremely friendly people who offered us a fine scottish whisky I couldn’t refuse.

This post is actually part 2 of first days in Lisboa and talks about day 2 and 3.

Nathalie leaving for Coimbra

When I woke up this morning it took me a second or two to realize where I was. I was at the youth hostel in Lisbon, I had to find an apartment to stay for the next 5 months and my girl was going to leave to her erasmus city in a few hours. It’s strange to be here. A few months ago we were only vaguely talking about going on erasmus and now we’re really here. I kinda like the adventure.

After breakfast I went with my girlfriend to Orient station to say goodbye. She’s going to study Portuguese and Spanish in Coimbra, a university city 200km north of Lisbon. I hope it’s a nice city with friendly people. Maybe I’ll visit it in a couple of weeks. (she has a dutch blog here if you want to read more about her adventures). Goodbye’s are never fun, but this one was particularly hard because I was worried about her going to a new city all by herself.

Anyway the train left and I wondered around a bit before going back to Alec to start our apartment hunt.

Searching for 2 nice rooms in Lisboa

One thing we knew by now was that Portuguese people aren’t very keen on using email as a communication device. I think we sent about 20 emails before we came to Portugal and only received 3 or 4 replies. So we phoned every number we could get a hold of with Alec’s new portuguese sim card. (if you want my or Alec’s new number, drop me a mail or leave a comment)

We saw some ugly apartments. My god, sometimes it feels like there’re really ripping off erasmus students (or foreign people in general). One place was on the 5 or 6th floor of a building that looked like it could collapse any time, smelled like they used cat urine as paint and had a ’sales’ lady that said it was in a bad neighborhood.

We saw one super apartment though in Bairro Alto (the older and nicer city part where all the bars are located). The apartment was owned by a female photographer so it had a lovely design interior. Must have been by far the coziest apartment I’ve seen here. Unfortunately she was only renting 2 rooms and we’d have to live with her. (she is a little crazy) We prefer an apartment with other students! There was a german girl staying there now who came here on erasmus 2 years ago. She gave us some good tips and showed us the ‘erasmus’ bar later that evening.

Luckily Alec met a Slovenian girl (Anna) in the youth hostel who had found a place which had 2 rooms left. It’s an OK apartment perfectly located close to the metro and in walking distance from Bairro Alto (very important). The owner, Carlos (which is pronounced Car-louche, funny if you know French), is a nice guy who showed us the rooms. After thinking about it for a day we decided to take it, mainly because there are 6 other erasmus students living here.

L’Auberge Espagnol

So now we’ve been living here for 5 days with a Slovenian girl, an Italian girl, a French girl, a Slovakian guy, a Czech guy and a Polish girl. A nice mix of cultures if you ask me. A bit like the french movie L’Auberge Espagnol.

We’ve been going out to the bars at Bairro Alto since.
(I hope I’ll have time to write a post about it)