Hello everyone, my name is David Sousa and in this blog I will show you all my experience in this Erasmus project, but first I will give a brief introduction about myself.

I am 17 years old and I was born and raised in Almancil, Portugal. I enjoy making people laugh and feel good around me. Although I am not very social or talkative with everyone, I never stop talking when I am with my close friends.

I am fascinated by mechanics, cars, computer science, and programming. This Erasmus mobility is not only my first internship, but also my first trip abroad, which makes me even more excited for this experience.

Currently, I study at Escola Secundária de Loulé, and I hope to have the opportunity to participate in Erasmus again in my 12th grade.

I woke up around 6:30 am to be at the airport by 7:30 am. Once there, we checked in and waited for our flight to Dublin!

It was my first time flying, and to be honest, I was expecting it to be worse. The only thing that really bothered me was the pressure in my ears.

We were almost there, and everything was going well until...the pilots couldn't land in Dublin and had to divert to Manchester due to weather conditions. Because of this, we had to wait about an hour on the plane to return to Dublin to catch our flight to Vilnius.

We started the day by buying breakfast at a store right next to our hostel. The "Iki Express" store reminded me of the "Algarsuper" store in Portugal, because it's a small store with all the essentials. I liked the store, and the breakfast was delicious.

We stayed at Maxima until lunchtime and then we went to have lunch at a restaurant called "plusplusplus" literally "+++", I didn't have many expectations but it was really good!

We went to dinner at the restaurant "Bernelių Užeiga", the location was good, it had a very attractive and different appearance but... the food was not something we were used to so none of us were very satisfied.

Day two, this one specifically for exploring and relaxing, started by visiting Hales Market, one of the oldest markets in the city and still continues to this day. I had breakfast there!

One of the places I visited was the Church of St. Michael the Archangel, built around 1600. It represents the transition from Renaissance to Baroque architecture in Lithuania. I thought the architecture of this church was beautiful!

This church was built in the 18th century at a time when the Orthodox community was growing, and today it is a very active center of the Orthodox faith, especially the Russian and Belarusian communities. I found this church to be the most beautiful, its interior captivated me, not to mention its sheer size.

The three towers are located after all the painful stairs we climbed, and they were built after Lithuania's independence, replacing previous, destroyed versions. It's one of the city's most famous viewpoints, and the view makes it easy to understand why.

Finally, it was lunchtime. After walking until I couldn't take it anymore and exploring tons of places, it was time to relax a bit. We arrived at a shopping mall in the city center and I went to have lunch at KFC. It was the worst decision I ever made. KFC here is really bad. We only have two drink options, very little food variety, and the delivery method was horrible.

Today I woke up, had a quick breakfast, and went straight to work. This day was exhausting, and I say "work" because we didn't get to do what we were supposed to do. We got a little lost in the tasks, so I decided to move forward with my blog.

It's lunchtime, and we came to our workplace for lunch. There's a small restaurant, and it's actually quite good!

The only shame is that we don't have drinks, but the food is so good it makes up for it!

Dinner time, and we were almost late.

We rushed out of the mall, caught a bus, and because of the traffic, we almost arrived late, but we made it!

Dinner was surprisingly good. I've never been a soup eater, but this soup was incredible, and the dish was equally good!

Today we woke up and went to work alone. Today was the day I finally discovered what we had to do after a conversation with Professor Egle. Unfortunately, our task wasn't at all what we expected... It involved taking information from the website's database and copying it into an Excel file for easy reading.

But it's so annoying to just have to press Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V.

After a few hours we went to lunch at the company, and today's lunch was basic but very good!

A breaded chicken fillet with salad, which contains cucumber, lettuce, tomato and a little garlic sauce.

After a 30-minute walk, we finally arrived. We had to figure out how it worked and put all our clothes together on the lowest heat setting. While we waited, I updated my blog.

The wash was a success, but we dried it twice on the lowest setting and still left with our clothes a little damp... Next time, things will be better!

While we waited for our clothes, we decided to stop by Maxima and do some shopping for our groceries. I also noticed that there are a lot of cafes in Lithuania, and because of that, I started drinking more, and today was no exception.

We did the laundry, came home, and rested. Dinner time! We went to 7 Fridays as usual, and today's meal was different. It was good, but here they have some really unusual things, like adding cream to the soup and using herbs in the food, which is a bit strange, but maybe we'll get used to it.

Today was a different day. Professor Egle suggested we do our homework in a different place, the library closest to our hostel. Before we started using Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, we just had to explore the library and... wow. Quite different from Portuguese libraries. I found it a bit disorganized and very large. There were several rooms to work in, all of them full of books. Some of them even had bookshelves!

After touring the entire library, we sat down and began to work. It's strange to work in such a quiet and still place, but it's actually quite nice.

When it was noon, we left the library and went downtown to have lunch at McDonald's. Interestingly, the McDonald's we went to has an exterior structure integrated with the building, which makes it quite beautiful. Inside, it's quite large, even requiring a staircase.

As we walked around all the stalls, one really caught our eye. It was a stall selling 3D-printed items like keychains, remote control holders, random toys, and more. My girlfriend and I gave in to temptation and bought a shark keychain for each of us.

Another day, another dinner at "7 Fridays". Today's soup was the same as the other day and the dish was breaded chicken with potatoes, nothing special really, but I think the soup was tastier last time.

Today is Saturday, and it's time to visit and explore the city. We started the day by visiting the Museum of Illusions. This museum is located in a rather inconspicuous area, and I expected it to be larger, but it still exceeded my expectations!

After the Museum of Illusions, we continued our city tour to the Palace of the Grand Dukes, one of Vilnius' most important monuments, both historically and for its national symbolism.

Today, it serves as a national museum, hosting exhibitions, cultural events, and official visits. It represents the heritage of the Grand Duchy and the historical identity of Lithuania.

Finally, it was lunchtime. We were already super tired and starving, so the first place we came to was McDonald's. So far, we'd only made it halfway through our visits.

After lunch, we headed straight to our next visit, the Museum of Occupations and Struggles for Freedom!

During the Soviet era, the Museum of Occupations and Struggles for Freedom was used for interrogations, arrests, and executions of political prisoners. Today, it serves as a memorial and museum, telling the story of Lithuania's struggle against Soviet and Nazi occupation and honoring the victims of repression.

I'm not going to lie, being in here and seeing how difficult and painful it was makes me feel a little uncomfortable and creates a heavy atmosphere.

And finally, we made our way to our final visit, Gediminas' Tower. Built in the 14th century by Grand Duke Gediminas, it is the last remaining part of the Upper Castle that once stood in Vilnius. It became a symbol of Lithuania's independence, especially after the raising of the national flag in 1988. Today, it houses a small museum and offers one of the best views of the city.

I'll be honest, this day was so tiring that I completely forgot to show you my dinner, but we went to "PlusPlusPlus" and the dinner was very good. Definitely what I needed after such an exhausting day.

We decided to go to "PlusPlusPlus" again because on Sundays they have a discount where we order a burger with juice and fries and only pay for the burger. It was great, but unfortunately, when we were leaving, I spilled ketchup on my clothes and had to go home to change...

After lunch and getting changed, we decided to do something to make the most of the day and went to a shopping mall other than "OZAS." We went to PLC Panorama! This mall seemed to be bigger and had lots of cafes.

After browsing the entire mall and doing some essential shopping, we decided to stop at the cafe and get a cold coffee to make up for our tiredness. It was good, but apparently, Lithuanians don't usually drink coffee with sugar.

We got home, packed up, and rested. Dinner time came, and we ate something we'd bought at the mall. It was a frozen pasta with ham and cheese. I actually liked it, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, especially since I felt a little sick afterward...

We started the day like everyone else, taking the bus to work, but this time it was quite late. Luckily, we made it on time, but it was just barely.

One thing I've noticed about living in big cities, especially Vilnius, is that people have no patience, and there's a lot of traffic on the roads.

We arrived at work and tried something different today. Ines and I are doing the same project as a group, and we realized it would be impossible to complete our work in a month. We even asked artificial intelligence, and it was practically impossible. So, being programmers, we tried to create a program that would do it for us. The basics of the program were working, but there was still a lot to do...and the worst part is that it's something completely new to us, so we were trying blindly.

After a lot of work, it's finally lunchtime. Today we decided to have lunch at work again and noticed that the lunches are mostly the same, but they're all very good and inexpensive.

Today's meal was a breaded steak with rice and a very good sauce.

We got home, worked, rested, and it was time for dinner. We went again as planned at "7 Fridays," and today the food was different. The soup, I can't quite explain what it was, had potatoes and vegetables, and the main course was strange. It looked like a regular burger, but the meat was shredded beef, and the burger had a sweet flavor. I didn't really like it, but I ate it.

Wake up, have breakfast, catch the bus, and work. That's been our routine these past few days, and because of the traffic, the bus is late every day. But it's all good; incredibly, we've been arriving on time!

Today, we delved a little deeper into our program and presented our idea to Professor Egle. I don't know if she was very interested, but let's try to be programmers and make our work easier!

After dinner, we returned home, and I prepared things for the next day. Once everything was ready, I worked on my blog a little further and did some research for my work in Linesa.

We woke up at our usual time, followed our normal routine, but instead of catching the bus, we sat down and started working, exploring new ways to do our jobs. This is our first time working remotely, and I'm loving it!

It's a different feeling, doing our work in the comfort of our own home, and I really enjoyed it.

During lunch, we all received a message from the Lithuanian government warning that there had been a fire at a gas filling station, and that it was recommended to avoid direct contact with the air. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before, and it left me a little agitated, but everything turned out fine.

We got home, worked, worked, and worked until dinnertime, as always at "7 Fridays." Today's soup was even better; it was piping hot, and the main course was also a surprise.

I'm not a soup person, but this month I've been eating it practically every day.

After dinner we went to "Maxima" and on the way home we came across the red moon! It was beautiful, I tried to take a picture but my phone doesn't have much quality for zoom photos but you can see it.

Today was another day of remote work, and that's great because we have more time and peace of mind to have breakfast. Normally, it's just cookies or coffee with milk, but today I was able to make something more filling!

It was lunchtime, and today we decided to try different places. We opened TikTok, did some research, and went to the place. It was a good fit because it was very close to our hostel and reasonably priced, so we went to Grill London. This restaurant has a London street vibe, and I really liked the decor and the food!

Another dinner at "7 Fridays," and this time the food was surprisingly different. The soup was good, but the main course was even better. It's like a crepe but with chicken and sauce inside, and it was delicious. We all loved it!

I woke up, had breakfast, made a little progress on the blog, and got to work until lunch!

When we left home, we found ourselves in this weather; after almost two weeks, finally, some rain! For many, it's a bad thing, but for us Portuguese who love winter, it's great.

Today, since the weather was so bad, and we didn't have an umbrella due to forgetfulness, we decided to try a new restaurant near our house: "HesBurger." It's like a Burger King, but different. It was good, but I didn't like the fact that my burger practically fell apart and I had to put it back together while eating.

At dinner time, we went to "7 Fridays" like every day and had a soup that had a strange, familiar Portuguese flavor; it was very good. There's not much to say about the main course: pork skewered with rice. It was also good.

We woke up, got ready, had breakfast, and left at 9:30 am to catch our train. The day before, we bought round-trip tickets to Trakai, one of Lithuania's most famous cities (they cost around 5 euros each). The plan was to arrive in Trakai, visit the castle, explore the city, and then return home. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't the best, but we made the most of it!