Bom dia everyone and welcome to my first blog here in Portugal!!
My name is Giulia, I’m 21 years old and I’m from Brescia, a small city in the north of Italy (close to the well-known Milan). I arrived here in Lisbon just three days ago and this is my first day here at the office.
What can I say about myself?
Well, first of all let’s start with my family. I have two sisters, from whom I have four years difference: Chiara is the youngest one (17) and Anna the oldest (25). Other members are, of course, my parents and then two beautiful dogs, named Melly and Moka.
You can see Moka in the picture here on the left.
I live in a very quiet neighborhood far from the city and nothing really happens in that area. Because of that, a couple of years ago, while I was on a solo-trip in Germany, I fell in love with traveling and meeting people from all kinds of backgrounds. I remember the first time that I landed in Hamburg, I was all by myself and I was so scared of getting lost or not being able to properly communicate due to a language barrier. However, I managed to survive the journey and I reached the designated destination after I got lost just a couple of times… nothing to worry about!
After that experience and getting graduated, I decided to go study Computer Science in The Netherlands and I lived there for one year. I can confidently say that it was the best year of my life. I became friends with students from all over the world and I enjoyed living in a multicultural place like Rotterdam. Here you can see a picture of the city! Sadly, I realized later on that a job in the programming field wasn’t for me: I like (and I still like) coding, but I can’t see myself doing that for a living. Because of that, I dropped out of university and took the decision to use this year to understand what my future holds.
The passion for traveling was still there, that’s why I searched all summer for an opportunity abroad and, once I found this project, I knew that it was the most suitable one for me. Portugal always fascinated me, the culture is (at least this is my idea) quite similar to the Italian one, but its position and history make it a more open-minded country. Furthermore, I wanted to learn the language. Why Portuguese? To be honest, I don’t have a real answer. I like the sound of it and, since it’s similar to my native language, I hope it will be easier to learn it than other non-European ones.
When I visit a place I can’t appreciate it if I experience it just as a tourist. I guess it really depends on the reason of the trip, but I believe that you can’t understand the culture and the behavior of the locals by sleeping in a hotel and going to the most basic tourists’ attractions. That’s why I always try to put myself in different situations and I look for opportunities like this one. Other than that, the topic of the project is perfect for me: it’s true that I don’t want to make a living with it, but I still love technology and everything that’s computer-related. I hope I can apply some of the knowledge that I got during the past year and make myself useful during these six months.
I don’t really have a preference for what I will do here, but I think I could work on something about Java (which I learned in university). It could be a small software or even a brief workshop where I could explain the basic things of it and the possible applications in the field. Also, I’m interested in learning graphic design and video editing. I know nothing about these topics, but the people here are used to them so I hope they can teach me a few things.
What else can I say?
As I wrote before, I arrived here three days ago, so I still don’t have a lot of information about the city. During this time I took a walk in the town that I live in and experienced New Year’s Eve in Lisbon. For now I find the place to be nice and quiet, but I’ll keep you updated later on if you’re interested in finding out something more.
I guess that’s everything for now. If you’re still reading, thank you and see you next week!
