Looking back at my journey as an Erasmus student, I can confidently say it was an incredibly positive and transformative experience.

My main motivation for embarking on this adventure was to regain a sense of independence and step out of my comfort zone after the pandemic. Without a doubt, I achieved these goals and so much more.

Learning Portuguese was also one of my goals, but it turned out to be more challenging than I initially thought. Understanding the language was never a problem; I could follow the classes from the start, and studying was only slightly more work than usual. However, communicating was a struggle. I've heard my whole life that Galician is a free pass to speaking Portuguese, but my experience was far from that. Yes, it's true that I was never an avid Galician speaker, but training my brain to recognize when a word is Galician, Spanish, or Portuguese was not a simple task. In summary, after 9 months, I can now speak and create sentences for basic conversation and job-related matters, but I doubt my skills for complex arguments and deep topics. I also underestimated how easy it is to live in Lisbon without speaking much Portuguese; English turned out to be a way bigger deal than I expected.

I already had a comfortable level of English where I could do almost anything in it, but I can tell my brain has changed in some ways after speaking English daily. Math was one of those unexpected changes. I would always go back to my mother tongue when counting, but that is no longer the case. The way my accent was diluted was also interesting.

Leaving language aside, I think I appreciate Spain more after spending a year abroad. For years, I felt a bit like an outsider in my own country. However, when I decided to use English as my main language for writing and surfing the web, I felt disconnected from the average experience that my friends had. Portugal is very similar to Spain in many ways, and appreciating their culture made me see the similarities and differences that we have, leading me to learn to love my culture a bit more.

Now, talking about the education system and the expectations I had when going to a completely different university, I was at first a bit scared about the level I could encounter at one of the best universities in Portugal. However, what I found was surprisingly similar to my experience in Coruña, very similar organization and the same problems you encounter here. I'm very critical of the educational system, and it was disappointing in some ways to see that they don't do it any better in prestigious institutions like ULisboa. But I also found some amazing teachers that changed the way I see some subjects, especially my IT security teacher, Dulce Domingos. She was one of the best teachers I've ever had in any field.

Now, I have a charged battery and I'm ready for whatever comes my way. My desires to explore the world and different cultures have only increased, but I also feel closer to my roots. The introverted kid that I once was is nowhere to be seen, and I've grown as a person in almost every way possible.