Internship in Portugal

I liked Lisbon so much that I soon knew I wanted to stay longer. Also, I had the feeling that my Portuguese had just improved and I wanted to exercise more to know it even better. Also most of my friends were staying for one, two or more years. I loved my flatmates and they had told me many times to stay longer. My landlady was also very flexible and told me to just tell her, when I know how long I am staying. So, already in November, I started writing applications for internships in Lisbon and surroundings. I sent many applications for everything linked to languages. Soon, I got some answers and after some job interviews, I decided to start my internship with Secretplaces.

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The only negative thing about that was that it is located in Cascais, which takes me every day one and a half hours one way with the train and metro. But as I bought some books in Portuguese and the train line follows the coast, which offers every day other amazing sights, I was ok with that. Many people suggested me to move, but I liked my room and flatmates and apart from that, most of the live goes on in Lisbon. I applied for an Erasmus internship and within one week had my fund. Everything went very well and was easy. I finished my courses at the Católica and in February started working for this company.

Secretplaces is a hotel guide, offering unique hotels with the special something. They are always extraordinary in some ways. My tasks are very varied. I do everything what is needed. In the beginning, the launching of our new website was priority. We were looking for errors and improving our site. Most important was it to have a translation of the hotel descriptions in German. Our site exists in German, English and Portuguese. I was writing and translating descriptions of hotels, regions and cities. Another important thing was to renew the pictures with higher quality and I was busy for several days downloading, uploading and fitting pictures. Next to that, I am responsible for the social media, which consists mainly of Instagram and Facebook. There, we post new hotels, blog post and other interesting things. The blog is also part of my tasks.

Since February, we have another intern and we share all of these tasks. We write blog posts and two times a week publish them in English and German. We continuously update our press contacts, create and publish newsletter. We also answer the phone, but normally only in the languages that we speak. Only in exceptions, we answer the phone for other languages. We have someone in our office for all the languages of our market. Our team speaks fluently German, English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. For the new site, we also had to update the maps for the countries, regions, provinces and cities. Now, we also help searching new hotels for our selection, creating them for our site and putting them online. Helping with the bookings is routine. There, we have to look for availabilities, mind special needs as doors between the rooms, pets, baby beds or whatever and then book the accommodation, often or send alternatives. General stuff is always updated besides.

We work several people in one room and while working, I always pay attention what the others say. If it is German it is mostly for me, but even if they speak English or Portuguese someone might be addressing me, asking opinion or help, mostly with formulating German E-Mails. Even if they don’t say my name, I know when I am meant and answer. It only happens few times that I am so concentrated on my work that I don’t notice anything around me. Sometimes it is hard to stay concentrated as I understand every language that they speak and everyone talks to me and wants help.

Sometimes I have the feeling I am always busy with helping others and don’t progress in my work. But, that is also part of my work. Generally, I feel very welcome and also helpful at the workplace. Everyone is very kind and we get along well. I can tell my opinion and even make suggestions, which are taken into account. Especially during the launching of the new site, everyone was busy and I just looked myself for what to do and decided on my own. Also the other intern asks me a lot and I just take responsibility. We have so much choice and freedom and always balance between what we like and what has to be done. I think, we are a great team and that I learn a lot.

We also meet privately. The other intern and me, always go and come together, sometimes we go out. This week, we made a dinner together. Our chef cooked really delicious food for us. He took us on a sightseeing tour to the very nice beach close to his home, then showed us his wonderful home in a village with wonderful view on the sea. We had courgette and eggplant in olive oil and garlic as well as tuna with avocado as an entry and bacalhau with sweet potato puree as main dish. It was so awesome. We sat on his terrace, ate, drank wine, chatted and laughed a lot. Me and the other interns said this is the best internship with the best people we could get.

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