Lisbon-bound

Hello people! I haven't wrote a proper post on my upcoming exchange. I will be going to where I pointed in the map - Lisbon, Portugal, for a 5 month exchange. This is my second time applying for exchange. I didn't get what I wanted during the first time I apply when I was in year 2 and I rejected it. I didn't get my desired choice in the first round this time but was lucky to be offered this placement in the second round.

I was really unhappy that I couldn't go on an exchange with Huihui given that there was 10 places for that particular university. Some seniors told me that it was almost impossible to get an exchange placement if you rejected an offer before. I totally gave up on the thought of going on an exchange until the email for the second round of selection came. The leftover European universities were very very limited. Didn't have any high hopes and tada... I got the Lisbon placement and I accepted it:D The only problem with this offer is that I will be the only SMU student going. There's none from NTU but probably some from NUS but so far, NUS Business school friends haven't heard of any. Do let me know if any of you have friends heading to Universidade Nova De Lisboa/ Nova School of Business and Economics. That will be a great help! :)

The minute I found out that I will be going to Lisbon by myself, I quickly call the office to ask for more info but they refused to help me until I officially accept the offer. Sighs. So I did a Google search for people's blogpost on it and that returned nothing. Luckily I found 3 seniors who went to this university while searching for some reviews about this school on Facebook. Hehe. 2 of the SMU seniors are super helpful (ahem, in general all are very helpful normally but if you are unlucky, you'll probably meet the rude ones in this kind of situation) and tell me almost everything I need to know. So in general Lisbon is rather safe and cheap as compared to the rest of the Europe. They gave me contacts to rent apartment too. Felt so much more assured after that. So I think I am good to go :DD Everyone I asked kept telling me to go, that Lisbon is really beautiful, the university is beautiful, Zara and related brands are cheap there and blahblahblah... Here are some photos of Lisbon I found on Tumblr, to be honest, I didn't heard of Lisbon before exchange application:

The place looks promising. Hehe. I'll probably spam photos of the cute buildings for the first few weeks that I am there. I have already started to make a list of which clothes items I will bring over (I have a bursting wardrobe right now that isn't timeless. I probably wont wear them again after I come back 5 months later), what to buy when I first got there and what to buy in Florence when I am coming back ;) I just hope that I can have some NUS travel buddies so that I can travel before school starts. I have to come back when the sem ends at mid Jan. No chance to travel after that. Hopefully there will be NUS peeps going! Prays! So far I don't know where I'll want to go except for the MUST-VISIT London, Edinburgh and related ones and to Florence when I am coming back. Kiruna is super expensive to go from Lisbon and might not be lucky enough to see the Northern Lights. Hmms.