500 Erasmus-students, 4 days, one goal: PARTY!

500 Erasmus-students, 4 days, 1 destination and 1 mission: PARTY!

During my Erasmus stay in Porto, I spent 4 nights and 3 days in the Algarve with more than 500 (!) other international students of Portugal. The trip was organized by the Erasmus Student Network (ESN): an European student network that supports and develops student exchange. Erasmus students that were studying in various cities in Portugal like Braga, Lisbon, Aveiro, and Porto gathered in Algarve (Albufeira), the southernmost region of Portugal. The trip was called the ENM; the Erasmus National Meeting. The trip was only 135 euros, almost everything included (even the bus-trip and the dinners)! Even with so many students, the organizers were able to find us a great (private!) hotel, nice places for us to eat and fancy clubs to party. We were brought back and forth everywhere by bus, even if it was in the middle of the night after a party.

Day 1

My party-weekend started with a 4 hours bus trip (from Porto, because I was doing my Erasmus there). We started the trip early in the morning of Thursday the 17th of April (2014), so we had 3 full days to enjoy our stay in the beautiful city of Albufeira. The private hotel they booked for us consisted of apartments (not rooms), and I was sharing an apartment with my sister and two other Erasmus friends from Porto. The apartment had a living room, a kitchen, a small terrace and one bedroom for two persons. Two of us slept in the bedroom and the other two slept in the living room on the big couch. The hotel had a beautiful swimming pool surrounded by grass to sunbathe on and next to it there was a bar with a terrace. Besides, we had access to a beautiful private beach! Sounds like heaven, right? Trust me, it really was. Check out these pictures!

When we arrived in Albufeira, there was a huge line of students waiting to do the check-in. All the students from the various cities came all around the same time, imagine what a chaos! After check-in, most students gathered around the swimming pool to relax after the long bus trip. Games like limbo dancing and beer pong were played, and the Brazilian students took instruments to make some music. The atmosphere was great! Afterwards, there was a party with a DJ in the main street of the hotel (on both sides of this long street all the apartments were located). A huge canon released big amounts of foam. It was really fun, the whole environment was white and it was a great cooling down after staying in the sun for some time. When the party was over, everybody prepared themselves to go to have dinner. We went to a restaurants in groups (by bus), the food was pretty nice and we could drink sangria and beer as much as we wanted. Later on we were brought by bus to the “strip”, the street in Albufeira where the majority of the bars and clubs are located. We went out in club Libertos. Libertos Club is a very fancy, glamorous club. It has a good atmosphere and they play various kinds of (new) music. Everybody dressed a white t-shirt because there would be markers around so that everybody could leave a text on each other’s t-shirts. Every hour there was a bus ready to take people back from the party to the hotel. It was a great night out!

Day 2

The second day we were brought by bus to a huge Aqua park. It had various water slides, there was a huge grass area where people could lay in the sun, there was a show with animals, and there was also a dance teacher who gave some Zumba classes in the sun. Just perfect! At a certain moment we were all invited to come to the main swimming pool in the park. We had to count from 10 to 0, and on 0 everybody jumped into the pool and a huge water pistol fight took place. Afterwards we were brought back to the hotel, had some free time to spend and went for dinner. The party later on was this time in club Black Jack, a club inside a casino. Black Jack is one of the most sought-after clubs in Albufeira. The club has an amazing and modern interior and it has been the place to be for many years concerning nightlife in Albufeira. Again we had an unforgettable night-out!

Day 3

On day 3 they organized a beach volleyball tournament in the morning. Afterwards they put inflatable slides and games, trampolines and more crazy stuffs in the main road of the hotel. On all three days, during the whole day they had something planned for us, and it was all the time a big surprise! Each time they came up with even crazier games or events. Then there was again a party in the street of the hotel including… a pillow fight! The pillows were thrown from the higher floors of the apartments down to the street where people were partying. It was a mess. As soon as the people saw the pillows coming down and managed to grab one, a huge pillow fight started, resulting in a street full of pieces of pillows and the inside of it. Our last night out in Albufeira was in club Kiss, again a very fancy club. The club’s visitors are often tourists and they invite the best DJ’s of the Algarve to play some good music.

The last day..

The day of departure had come, it was time to pack our stuffs and check-out. We had three exhausting days, but we will never forget about those ones. Every single thing we did was awesome. We said goodbye to all the amazing people we met during our stay and took the bus back to Porto, to continue our last few months as an Erasmus student in Porto.

Something so big and awesome was extremely well organized, and even though a lot of crazy things took place, everything went well and everybody returned home safe and sound. Everything was organized in detail, for us to don’t have to think about nothing and just have the best time of our lives!

Photo gallery