The holidays have arrived more than two weeks earlier for the Erasmus students that have spent this last semester at Universidade da Beira Interior (UBI). On the 13th of December, at Merendola Restaurant, 100 students from Poland, Germany, Romania, Spain, Brazil, France, Estonia, Latvia, Belgium, Turkey and Italy gathered for their first Portuguese Christmas dinner. Since only around 40 of them will be spending this season in Covilhã, the event has been an opportunity for the mobility students to enjoy traditional dishes with five members of the Erasmus Student Network (ESN) members. They also exchanged gifts worth maximum 3 euros in a raffle that was coordinated by ESN. “We basically got a lot of chocolate-related gifts, but there were a lot of cute ideas that we are going to keep as souvenirs for life. Plus, the activity was great because we are all missing the Christmas tree at home and all the gifts underneath it”, said Lucian Rotaru, one of the Erasmus students who were present at the dinner.

The night also had a holiday dress-code, which is why everybody had at least one celebratory accessory on them. Probably the most impressive ideas for the festive outfits were a group of Polish students, who joined the dinner as seven white angels, “with wings made out of cut-out paper and a lot of patience”, as one of them explained.

Also present at the event were two representatives of UBI. “Our guests at the dinner were Rita Carrilho, ERASMUS Intensive Language Courses teacher and Sofia Maria Lemos, senior technician at the International Relations and Programs Office. They received presents as well and I believe everyone had a good time bonding with them outside the academic scene”, explained Pedro Santos, member of ESN Covilhã and organizer of the event.

The event was organized by ESN Covilhã and sponsored by UBI. It followed another Christmas related event that happened this month, the trip to Óbidos, where the Erasmus students visited the Christmas Village.