Surviving First Days in Lisbon - Some Tips & Hints from ESN LISBOA | esn-lisboa.org - Erasmus Student Network Lisboa - Best Erasmus Lisboa Experience

Hey,

Arriving to Lisbon soon ? Nervous ? Do you have everything taken care off ?

Lets follow a checklist of things you should taken care before you arrive here:

Get Help

Are you registered already in the ESN Buddy Program?

If you are not, you should have at least try to find a portuguese person to give you a hand in your incoming. It helps a lot with the housing areas, speaking with landlords and in finding a room. Don't forget to pay him/her a beer from time to time for the help, I'm sure him/she will also pay you a beer or two.

Temporary Housing

You prefer to see a house before taking it ? So you should book yourself a hostel for the first couple of days before arriving. There are dozens of hostels around Lisbon, we suggest to you two hostels where you can stay for good price/quality ratio:

Hostels List

These hostels are locatel in Lisbon downtown close to metro, tram and train lines so you can have easy access to transportation. Both are recommended by ESN.

Accomodation

This is the first thing you should worry about when you arrive to Lisbon. Lisbon is a big city with every year more and more international students and it can be hard to find a good price/quality relation on your housing. IT CAN BE HARD, but don't worry, that's life.

Here is a checklist of points you should consider when seeing a house/room:

Contract: it is very hard to find accommodations with contract. A contract would made the agreement legal and you would have some responsibilities covered by law. There is in Portugal some tendency to run away from taxes, although this tendency is more noticeable in the north of the country. Well, if you are not presented with a legally binding contract there is not much you can do since it is quite common. Sometimes you can also see weird contracts which are not legally binding.

Does the room have a window?: It is very iligal to rent rooms without windows, so try to avoid this kind of rooms also for your own mental health. Light is important for you.

Price, what does include?: Get a clear picture of what is included in the price. Normally you have or a all inclusive monthly rent for your room or room+expenses rent. Check if there is also cleaning service for the apartment and if includes only shared spaces or all the house.

House appliances: Consider on the price the number of house appliances you have at your disposal, like dishwasher, which is not common but you can already find some apartments with dish washer. You should also consider other small appliances within the price evaluation (ex: toaster, juice maker etc..) although not vital, they can be useful. Full oven with can also be missing in some apartments, very important to make frozen pizzas 3 times a week.

Location: The location of the apartment also has some influence in its price. If you are not planing to go out much, you can afford to live further away from the city center. Our suggestion is to look for the night bus lines and check if you are closer to one ( in the 20min/halh hour range), more than that is a torture. Also avoid dodgy areas and consider metro lines as life line to the outer world.

We are not going to tell you which areas you should avoid, because it can be quite misleading. So ask your buddy for some help on this.

Flatmates: Avoid living with persons from your country, this will limit your erasmus experience, never the less keep in touch with them, it is good to have a connection to our country. However, don't loose a good house for this reason. Having Portuguese flat mates can be interesting.

Number of flatmates: The bigger the apartment the more noisy it can be, however this should be compensated in the price. Compare the price/flatmates/quality ration before making a decision. Living alone is not an option.

Number of toilets/showers: Consider the number of toilets and showers in the flat, and how many rooms there are. Run away from bathrooms with two showers inside, this will be killing your privacy in not time.

Walking to your room: If you need to pass through someones else's room to reach to your room, don't even think twice. It is a NO GO.

Fridge: A normal fridge has a capacity for 3-5 people, depending on the size of the fridge and if they cook all togheter or not. Also consider if you have space for your onw stuff when looking at the house. ( you need to have space to put all the beer).

Internet: Can you live without internet? So I guess this answers you.

Phone/Land Line: It can be useful to have a land line, specially to receive calls from your country since land line calls are much cheaper. However this is expendable with skype.

Distance/Time to reach university: We all know Erasmus is not only studying, however the time you take to get to your university is also important. You don't want to loose two hours per day between home and the university.

Can I bring a friend: Some landlords are quite strict in letting you bring visitors to your house. Check this before renting a house, specially if you are planing to have many visits during the semester. Free stay of a guest for at least four days is quite a good thing.

Bed size: The size of the bed is not vital, but It is sure nice to have a double bed if you like having someone over from time to time, or just to have more space while you sleep. This is a plus in a bedroom.

Parties and noise: Old house will eventually be prone to more noise since the walls are not so insulated. This will be relevant, specially when considering the neighbors, in the moment of throwing a house party/dinner. Good neighbor relations will also allow you more time before someone calls the police.

Where to find a room?

It is not easy to find rooms in lisbon, this is a list of places where you can look for a room to rent:

ESN Recomended Housing - Click here

You can start by our accomodation database here

You can also try:

- Here;

- Here for appartments;

- ESN Facebook group "Erasmus Students @ Lisboa 2009/2010"

Additionally, you should try newspappers and contacting your university since some of them have erasmus residences or a database of rooms to rent.

Arriving to Lisbon

Lisbon airport is small but often lugage takes quite some time, so be patient. And since it is an old airport is quite close to the city center.

You have four options to get to the city from the airport:

by foot - which is not recomended, since it is a considerable distance, but doable;
by a ride - the best and cheaper way, getting a friend to pick you up from the airport, ask your buddy from the buddy program, maybe he/she is kind enough to pick you up;
by bus - it cost 1.40 euros, and you pay in the bus, bus 22 and 745 takes you to the city center and downtown. Some bus drivers don't let you enter with a lot of luggage. There is also the airport express with is more expensive.
by taxi - confortable but tricky. A bus ride to the city center in normal conditions should cost you from 6 to 8 euros. But often they charge higher. This does not mean you should not take a taxi, just means you should be careful and pay cattention. Else you can buy the taxi voucher

There are no bikes available (I'm sorry but you are not in netherlands anymore).

Moving in Lisbon

First day, go to the metro station and get a "Viva Viagem" card, it is a recharchable card which you can use in both metro and bus. It is loaded with money instead of tickets.

Later on you will do the "Lisboa Viva Card" which is a card for the monthly ticket, check the ESN Portugal Survival Guide for more info.

Party in the first night

Ok, so now you should already have a room, or you already have some in view to visit in the next couple of days. You should be relaxed in a hostel or at someones place, checking or creating a facebook account.

Then you should go relax a little bit and discover the night in Lisbon, but not too much if you still need to visit rooms tomorrow.

Our sugestion is to go for am Mojito or Caipirinha in Bairro Alto in Apolo Bar.

- Apolo Bar : Rua da Cara nº3, it is just in the "Erasmus Corner" the area where normally erasmus students hang around from Tuesday to Friday.

If today is a Tuesday, and if you are looking for something more lastlonging, our sugestion goes to checking MusicBox for the ESN Lisboa Tuesdays Party.

Last things

Ok, so if you come until here, it means you already have a room, you already know where other erasmus hang out and you already know how to move yourself in Lisbon.

Now, if you still don't have one, get a TMN ESN Moche card, this will be the best price plan you can get. Every erasmus have it and you can speak for free between each others.

You can get the TMN ESN Moche card for free from:

- Apolo Bar in Bairro alto;

- ESN office starting in the 25th of January;