My First Visitors

When you tell people that you’re going on a year abroad, it’s likely that you’ll have people saying “ooh I’ll come and visit you when you’re in …”. This has been said to me by so many people; family, uni friends, friends from home, which is perfect when I’m the only one from my university this year to do their year abroad in Porto and there’s a severe lack of English Erasmus students here (I’ve met 3 in nearly 3 months). Other friends on their year abroad in places like France and Spain seem to have a friendship group of other Brits, which just sounds so nice to have people from the UK with you when you’re missing home and want to hear an English accent in real life. I know that this year is all about immersing yourself in the culture, but it is SO HARD to find Portuguese people who will talk to you for more than a minute. In the 3 months I’ve been here I would say I have 1 Portuguese friend from my French class, and even then we don’t speak in Portuguese! It’s frustrating to say the least, and everyone else in my house has at least 1 other person who is from their country or who speaks the same native language as them.

Anyway, as it was October half term and my mum works in a school, she had a whole week off to come and see me. She flew over with my aunt on the Saturday and it was so much fun meeting them at arrivals with mum’s suitcase crammed full of things I’d forgotten to bring/that I couldn’t fit in when I came in September. We had a customary Costa, which became a daily ritual, and then headed to my house. So I’m now equipped with things Portugal hasn’t thought to sell such as a pizza tray, oven gloves and hangers that come in bigger sets than 4 in a pack!

They were staying in the hotel I’d stayed in with mum when I first got here which has such a great location. The weather was amazing that week. It got up to 28 degrees, which would just be unheard of at home, and to be fair in Porto, where it rains nearly all the time. We did all the typical touristy things as my aunt hadn’t been to Porto before, with the obligatory ride on the cable car in Vila Nova de Gaia, an open-top bus tour, a boat cruise (horrific when you get sea sick), a trip to the beach and many, many beers and meals out. The meals were great seeing as I’d spent my first 2 months here living off cheese sandwiches and Danio youghurts – but that’s what you get for being a vegetarian (basically unheard of in Portugal) who is a ridiculously fussy eater who at home lives off around 8 different meals. We had an amazing salad in the poshest beachfront Pizza Hut in Foz and I found a vegetarian restaurant on TripAdvisor called essencia. It was AMAZING! They even do a few meat/fish dishes and I was in heaven. I went twice that week, once with my mum and aunt, and then again when my dad came over.

We also got to see the latada which was crazy! It lasted for nearly the whole day on the Sunday and it involved first years who want to become part of the praxe covering themselves with drinks cans and wearing the colour of their faculty. They were supervised by proper members of the praxe, and then in the evening a massive procession started, finishing outside the town hall, right next to the hotel. It was so loud, but looked like so much fun, and loads of parents were there taking photos of their children like their kids were in a school play, so it must be a big deal.

My aunt flew back to the UK on the Tuesday on the plane that brought my dad over, how convenient! Unfortunately I had a French class and then 2 back-to-back Spanish exams at uni, so I wasn’t able to be at the airport when dad arrived, but we met up afterwards and went for pizza and then to a sports bar we’d found when we came in June. Dad loves doing as much stuff as possible, so we kept busy by walking up the Torre dos Clérigos (lots of high steps were not made for short people), visiting Livraria Lello (the bookshop that is said to have inspired J.K. Rowling whilst writing Harry Potter) and going food shopping.

We managed to fit in a trip to Lisbon as the flights were stupidly cheap. We flew early on Thursday morning and headed straight for the MEO Arena because I’m going to the 5 Seconds of Summer concert there in May and I wanted to see where it was. We saw this amazing hotel that looked as if it should have been in Dubai a 5 minute walk from the arena, and it was so posh. It’s 200 euros a night, and my parents have hopefully agreed to let me stay there when I go back in May as my 21st birthday present as the concert is the week after my birthday. Then we headed into Lisbon and checked into our hotel and had a nap, we’d been up since 3am! The rest of the day was spent exploring Lisbon, having the best toasted sandwich I will ever eat, going to the top of the Padrão dos Descobrimentos, seeing the Torre de Belém, riding on the metro (not as nice as Porto’s) and getting spectacular views from the top of Parque Eduardo VII (thanks for the tip Lewis!). We had planned to go to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, but after all the sightseeing, travelling and sun I felt rotten, so mum and dad went out for dinner and I stayed in the hotel room sleeping and watching TLC with Portuguese subtitles. They did bring me back a McDonalds though 🙂 After successfully speaking Portuguese to and understanding our taxi driver, we made it to the right terminal the next morning and flew back to Porto. It was a short trip, but I’ll be back to see Lisbon properly next year.

My parents flew back on the Saturday morning, I would have gone to wave them off, but it was early and the Lisbon trip had properly taken it out of me, in fairness the whole week had after becoming used to 8 hours of uni and a twice weekly 5 minute walk to the supermarket! But it was so nice to see them and enjoy the last of the sun, because typically as soon as they left, the rain returned!

Here’s a selection of photos from the week 🙂