I can't even remember when was the last time before this that I traveled somewhere with a group. It was probably in high school cause it felt like we are in high school again going to meet the older and wiser kids and have hell of a fun time during it. Just imagine so many (let's say) grown ups sitting in the party bus and being shy about meeting people or being the cool kids doing crazy stuff just like the old days.
This trip was organised by the Erasmus Student Network aka ESN and I wish I knew this organisation sooner cause it felt like this was the only part I was really missing from my university experience so far.
I know that most travelers are snob and they are just simply saying that only solo traveling is the proper way of doing it but man, you need to -no, you must- go to the Erasmus events, it's just a whole another experience.
We arrived in the beautiful and hilly city of Porto where I was amazed by all the colorful houses and the elegant bridges connecting the parts of the city. We started at the hostel we were staying at and had plenty of free time which we ended up using for a big family lunch, having so much francesinha that you could barely finish but if you did you could proudly call yourself a champion -which I ended up being but we could call it cheating cause I had the vegetarian option and no starters.
After lunch, we had a short city tour lead by one of the ESN member who was born in Porto but is from Spain but actually lives in Lisbon (sorry for the inside joke here). So don't imagine a normal city tour. We started late, or some may say just in time considering the Portuguese time cause all of us needed that caffeine boost after the francesinhas.
While Mr. Two nationalities was our guide we walked to one touristic spot to the other and kinda made fun of him trying to present his hometown. We ended the tour with a beautiful sunset spot where we could have caught a breathtaking sunset if it wasn't so foggy. Anyway the sight was still worth it, we sat in the grass and listened to the street musician.
Th real difference of the trip and solo traveling was in the night time. This one is probably on me, but I tend to not chose going out drinking and partying whilst being alone cause of safety reasons. We went for a late night dinner at this canteen-like place which was extremely bizarre for me for many reasons. We were sitting there all dressed up for the glitter-party later that night while having cheaply made canteen food and very weak Sangria an beer (but lot of it cause our leaders would not let us leave before we got completely wasted). After a while we started partying right there in the canteen, dancing like there's not tomorrow or at least not a closing time. However, both parties ended well for most of us - too much reggaeton if you ask me.
This was the first day of the trip and I will discuss the second and third day in a different blogpost called Porto2.
To be continued