Airports, Hostels, and New Friends

Hello from Portugal!

We have made it safely to Portugal! To say that our travel to Lisbon, Portugal was easy, would be a lie. Most of us had been running on fumes after 24-32 hours of travel and no sleep. We were proud of our students for keeping a constant positive attitude and high energy. The students navigated the airports like pros and kept us, the program leaders, smiling with their jokes and games!

When we finally settled in for the night everyone was excited to get to bed (we needed to be fully rested for all the adventures starting today!) at our hostel, the HubLisbon.

Once in Lisbon, we headed to the University, played ice breakers, and had a quick orientation. Everyone hit it off right from the start. We feel lucky to have such an amazing group of students and look forward to spending the next three weeks with them! Today our adventures will get started with a tour of Lisbon in the afternoon after we finish up orientation about the classwork we'll be doing.

The students received “baby phones” (non-smart phones) to stay in touch during our travels. There was definitely a learning curve as they familiarized themselves with the “stone-age cell phone”, as some of our students called it.