O testemunho No. 3 do Michele (Spin Association)

And here we are.

The last days in Lisbon.

My Last Dance.

It’s hard to look at my back and evaluate my months and my life here.

It’s a huge combination of feelings, emotions, happy times (a lot), bad moments (luckly few), plenty of new people and things that I done.


But let’s try.

It looks so far away when I arrived here, the 29 of February. It looks like it was 3 years ago, but it was “only” 9 moths ago.

I know that I had hard times (for example during the quarantine, when I saw my closest friends leave, and also now).

And I know that I had a lot of beautiful moments (all the people that I met, my trip in Porto, the trip with my lovely friends in Alentejo and Algarve, the Spin lunches and welcome days).

But I really love all these moments, sad or happy, in the same way. I really think that all these pieces of my life helped me to become the person that I am right now. I know that probably the bad moments helped me even more, and that’s why I never tried to avoid the sadness but embrace it. So I want to say thanks to my sad and happy moments, because I wouldn’t be proud of myself without you.

The happy moments were most of the time with my friends here, that became my second family. I really love each of the people that I met here in different ways but I’m really glad to met all of them. They also were a crucial point of my experience here, because I know new places with them, new people, I did new and different things, I knew them every time a little bit more and I discovered knew things also about myself. Thank you for existing and to be such great people and friends.

Worked for Spin it was one of the best thing that could happened in my life. I found a group of really extraordinary people, always available, polite, sweet, smart, sensitive and especially during a pandemic situation, supportive. I will keep you all in my heart.

I also need to say thanks to Lisbon. An amazing city with amazing and crazy people that is always ready to surprise you. A city where you can see 300 sunsets form the same Miradouro, but each of them will be somehow different and where I enjoyed the view every time in a different way.

I choose this city without knowing it because I felt that there was a strange connection, it was appealing, and now I can say that it was true. A city that became my second home, and it will be forever. Thank you.

But now I’m feeling that it’s time to go home. To reconnect with my other family and my other friends. I need to do it for myself, to close this circle, to do the last steps that I need.

It will not be easy to go home and to stay in Italy at the beginning. I already know it. I’m already missing so much this city and all the people that I met in the way. It will not be easy as it’s not easy to say goodbye to everything that I have here.



But it’s part of the life.

It’s part of the ESC experience.



But above all, it’s not a “goodbye”.

And probably it’s not a “see you soon”.



It’s a Never Ending Story.

My Never Ending Story.

O testemunho do Michele No. 2 (Associação Spin)

Here we are! It’s already passed more than half of my ESC period here in Lisbon. 

In these months a lot of things happened and now it looks like I’m here since more than 5 months.

After the Quarantine (probably the hardest period) I started to discovering and living Lisbon and its beauty. I went several times at the beaches and parks around Lisbon with the others volunteers that I can definitely  call friends, I visited different cities next to Lisbon like Setúbal, Peniche and now I’m planning to visit Porto!

I also had the chance to do an amazing trip with some friends in the south of Portugal (Alentejo and Algarve) discovering beautiful cities, beaches, people and sunsets.

During these months I’m also become closer to Portuguese language (thanks Aurélie for teaching us!), Portuguese kitchen (I could eat forever Pastels de Nata <3) and Portuguese people!

I finally met my Mentor (Inês) a funny and nice girl from Lisbon that is helping me to know better the Portuguese culture.

But the most important thing is that I’m feeling that this experience is helping me a lot to become a better person, I’m growing up day by day dealing with the challenges that I have here and in my life everyday.

After 5 moths of this experience I can definitely say that I took one of the best decision of my life because I’m finally feeling happy.

I’m really happy to find so many beautiful people during this experience, to discovering so many beauty in so many different places and I’m happy to seeing a Michele that is improving himself, no matter if sometimes lose or sometimes win.

In anycase at the end of these 9 months, I think this experience will be consider a victory.

O testemunho do Michele No. 1 (Associação Spin)

Hi! I’m Michele, 24 years old and I’m from Italy!

For the next 9 months I will be a volunteer for the Assiociaçao Spin.

It’s the first time for me that I live abroad and, for the moment, I don’t know what I am expecting from this experience.

I’m here only since 29th February but it seems like much more time has passed, especially during the first week because the time never passed!

In fact I had some tough moments, where my mind roamed a lot,  but now I’m feeling better and better!

I think that I only need to get used to the idea of living here, creating my own daily routine, my friends and my spaces.

For these reasons I can say that I’m learning a very important thing about this experience: to reinvent my time, myself, and to feel my deepest thoughts and emotions. 

For the moment I had the time to discover some beautiful place of my neighbourhood and of Lisbon (like Miradouro do Monte Agudo, Parque Eduardo VII, Parque Monsanto and cruz Quebrada’s beach! This city and his citizens are a continuous discovery! And I cannot wait to discover the most possible!

If I think about at the reasons that lead me to choose this experience, I can only say that I wanted to improve myself, get to know new people, cultures and I wanted to do something for the others.

For what I have experienced until now I can say definitely that is the right place, and I can’t wait to make it my place.