Lisboa é uma cidade que é muita linda e antigamente! With a historic European look Lisbon’s architecture captures the history that is behind this “old” city. As mentioned before, this is my first time traveling to Europe. From what I’ve seen in person, pictures don’t do justice to how beautiful this place is. With a castle up in the mountains that you can see from almost anywhere in Lisbon, to the replica of the golden gate bridge that brings you to another city over the river, one can see the change in architecture as the years went on. There is even a smaller version of the famous Cristo Redentor. Transportation includes anything from Ubers and metro systems to old cable cars and Tuk tuks! This city is like no other that I have visited! Even though I study Portuguese and have lived in Brazil for short periods of time, the language varies slightly from that of Brazil. Portuguese in Portugal sounds harsher and words are shortened in order to get your point across quicker. I too have no clue what is being asked of me at times or what people are saying when they speak to me in Portuguese.
When it came to orientation I really had no expectations. I understood that it may be different than orientation in the United States but I was ready to embrace it. For this particular CIEE study abroad program there aren’t that many students. We all fit into one class room comfortably which made our orientation a little more intimate. During orientation we had a quick tour of our campus. Unlike most universities in the US, campuses in Lisbon are much smaller; usually containing anywhere from 5- 7 buildings max. At the moment, classes aren’t in session, therefore you don’t really see to many students on campus. After lunch on day one of orientation the students and our CIEE coordinators walked the streets Lisbon and took a Tuk Tuk tour of different neighborhoods. For those who don’t know, Tuk Tuks are little electric wagons that carry people across the city; there is a driver and two rows of seating behind him. The second day of orientation was when we got down to business. We were introduced to a list of class we would be able to take and learned a little bit about the Portuguese academic culture. Later on that day we all were required to take a language placement test where we would learn which Intensive language classes we would be placed into. All in all, I have to say my orientation was very interesting. I didn’t feel as if I was just thrown out into Lisbon on my own with no help. The CIEE directors where there almost every step of the way to help us out. To this day I still haven’t registered the fact that I am living in a foreign country. Even though it looks much different than the United States, I still haven’t felt a sense of culture shock.
