My Travel Diary - Alice

My Travel Diary By: Alice Pão

Day 1…

5:30 a.m. and there I was, waking up as excited as I could, it’s interesting that for this kind of things waking up this early doesn’t hurt as much as one hour later for school.

Our flight to Lisbon was at 8:40 a.m. so we needed to be at the airport at 6:30 a.m. Once we were all together, we did the checkin and we were prepared to an all day trip.

Okay… But first… COFFEE!

Me and Inês went to Starbucks and we asked for a Caramel Macchiato and a cookie with chocolate chips.

Drank the coffee, then it was time to go to the airplane. And that was the moment I found out two things: 1st Catarina is afraid when we take off and 2nd Inês is afraid when we land, so I knew this flight would be interesting since they were by my side.

I hated the airplane food. They gave us a “chicken sandwich” uhum… it was just ham and salad… and also a bean muffin… (funny fact, that bean muffin

didn’t have beans) I only ate my cookie  their faces.

I mean… look at

We landed in Lisbon, yeyy, then we had to wait about 4 hours till our flight to Rome, we had so much time to kill, so we entered all the shops we could find.

I told you we had time to kill.

Now a 3 hour-flight to go, I did a little bit of everything, I read, watched a TV-show, annoyed my dear friends and in a flash we arrived!

Summarizing, we landed, got lost at the airport, found ourselves, went to the bus, did a 4 hour-bus trip from Rome to Battipaglia,

and I finally met Carmen!! The girl who hosted me, I was so happy (and nervous) but mostly happy, hahaha.

Day 2‌ I woke up at 6:15 a.m. because Carmen leaves far away from school, her brother gave us a ride to school after breakfast, I drank chocolate milk and ate some cookies.

I met some people from her school, they were so friendly and funny.

We went to her classroom, her classmates put music on, they started dancing, and we took some photos‌ Oh my God! I wish I had their energy every day in the morning.

After that 9:00 a.m. party we were welcomed to the school by attending a little concert by the students and then we did a school tour.

After that, me and Carmen went home and that was when I met her boyfriend Pietro. The lunch was PASTA and I loved it!!

I met her little brother and he tried talking in English with me!

After lunch she showed me her 18th birthday party pictures and she asked me to show her some of the pictures that I had in my phone, so she could see my family and friends.

Then we got ready, caught the bus, went to Battipaglia, caught the train and guess what? We went to Salerno, I touched for the first time the Mediterranean Sea! I was so happy!

Then we all went to have dinner in a kind of fancy restaurant and thattttt was the first Italian pizza that I ate.ď Š

So good!

As soon as I got home I fell asleep, I was so tired.

Day 3‌ 6.30 a.m. and there I was waking up and ready for a wonderful day. Ate my breakfast and then we went back to school. On the way there I saw the sunrise.

Once all of us were in school we went to the bus.

TOURIST MODE ON‌ Here we go Castellabate!

When we arrived, we visited the village and Castellabate Castle and the Antiquarim di Santa Maria de Catstellabate.

Everything was beautiful! Look at this view:

There was a street called “Qui non si muore” that kinda means “here people don’t have to die”, so we needed to try it… ups…

Tourist Mode Today was so hot that we went for a swim before the next activity. The water was so good!

After lunch we had a workshop on the processing of Menaica anchovies and they prepared some dishes with them so we could try it. The man didn’t speak English so he just talked in Italian and that was the moment that I realized that Italian isn’t that difficult to understand if they talk slowlyyyyyyy.

To end our day we did a boat trip! And what did we do again?

Swim! They gave us diving goggles so we could see the seabed.

On our way back we saw the sunset, how beautiful.

13.10.19

Day 4…

Monday morning and the alarm goes off at 6:15 am, time to get ready for another day. By the time I’m in the car and see another sunrise I realize that I need to enjoy this trip as much as I can!

8:00 am and it is time to get to the bus and go to Paestum. We went to the archaeological site of Paestum and we saw three temples. Then we did an interview.

And my lunch… oh my lunch… I could explain how good it was, but instead of it I’m just going to show you:

Margarita

Cannolo Siciliano

After lunch we went to the see where mozzarella comes from, try to guess… … …

WRONG, mozzarella comes from these cuties :) we saw that the more they are pampered, the better the milk is and the tastier the mozzarella will be. So they need to play, they receive massages, etc …

Later we went to an outlet and there I met a boy, called Alessio, he worked in a shop and was really friendly to us, when he noticed that we were from Portugal he started trying to talk to us in Portuguese and even sang a song (but we didn’t know it, it was probably Brazilian), either way, it was good to meet him.

After that we went to the town to meet the mayor and then it was time to go home. On my way home I met even more people hahaha, Carmen’s brother came to pick us up and also his girlfriend’s brother anddddd of Carmen’s boyfriend’s brother, who was the only one that spoke English because he is from South Africa. It was so cool, they taught me a little bit of Italian and I loved it!

Day 5…

For the first time since day one I didn’t see the sunrise because we needed to be at school even earlier so I woke up at 6:00 am.

It didn´t really matter, I had a wonderful day.

We went to the Porto of Salerno and we had a good time with the Italians and French, we put some Portuguese, Italian, French and English music, we all sang and danced. We even challenged them to sing a kid’s song in Portuguese and they did it pretty well!!

Time to go to the boat, next stop AMALFI! I loved it! We visited a cathedral, and WOW! After this visit we went to the “museo de la carta” and we even made Paper by ourselves!!

Then we had a couple of hours to kill before the boat trip, so some Italians asked us if we wanted to be with them and we accepted, we went to a park so we could have lunch and we spent our time talking, discovering the differences between our schools, things we liked to do etc…

And we ate Ice-cream! My FIRST ITALIAN ICE-CREAM! So goodddd!! Unfortunately the time passed way to fast and without even noticing it was time to go home again.

When we arrived to school Carmen and Claudia were waiting for me and InĂŞs so we could go shopping. It was starting to get late.

It was time to come home and rest for our last day‌.

Day 6…

I could wake up sad because today was the last day, but instead I woke up really happy and so excited because I had an amazing week that wasn’t over.

7:00 a.m. and there I was ready to go to school, we went to the bus and made our way to the Vesuvius Volcano. When we arrived it was REALLY cold! The teachers struggled with the tickets but once everything was good we started our walk to the top of the volcano. There was a geologist explaining how the volcano was formed and some of its characteristics.

After lunch we went to Pompey, we learnt about the explosion that happened so long ago. There was a lot of beautiful old buildings and we even saw some of the dead people that were burned till their death. What a tragedy! It’s kind of creepy but that was one of the things that I was more excited to see 

Getting late. It was time to go home, take a shower and prepare ourselves to the Erasmus+ dinner, we were all dressed up and so GLAMOUROUS. At home Carmen told me that she and her group were doing a little surprise for Solange, as it was her 18th birthday! So we needed to stall a little so everyone could get to the party before us. When we arrived everyone started singing her happy birthday and we were all so happy!!

Diner time!! Only the entries could be the full dinner!

Look at Inês haha Then we ate a little bit of pizza, but to be honest, nobody was hungry, we just wanted to enjoy our last night together.

We danced and sang a lot, having a really good time, it was the perfect way to say goodbye.

Just to conclude Erasmus+ was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. I tasted new foods, met a new way of living, saw landscapes that will always be in my mind, and met people that from now on will be forever in my life. It was a week that exceeded all expectations and enriching both at the level of improving my English and learning a little bit of a new language.

Grazie di avermi dato quest'opportunità entusiasmante!