International students at Porto University celebrate Xmas supper filled with joy and peppered with sharing

Circa 200 international students at Porto University gathered on 11 December at the Faculty of Law for an earlier Christmas supper filled with joy and peppered with sharing, in which the main attraction was the tasting of traditional festive cuisine from more than 25 different countries.

The highlight of the colourful palette of music, sweets and conviviality of this Christmas Get Together, organised by the International Relations Department of the University of Porto, was the gastronomic international competition themed "Sabores de Natal" [Christmas Flavours].

The international students signed up to the challenge of cooking the traditional dishes of their home country. Alongside Portuguese traditional dishes of this festive season, namely the rabanadas (fried bread slices with sugar and eggs), the Bolo rei (King Cake), or the sweet rice, other dishes for countries such as Bulgaria, which brought the Shopska salad or the chocolate from Kazakhstan, the delicacies and culinary treats were abundant in this festive Christmas meal.

It should be spotlighted that the University of Porto welcomes more than 2500 students in the Erasmus Mobility Programme and that the data for the second half of this academic year already shows a significant increase in the number of students taking part in the Erasmus mobility scheme, and the conclusion is that the University of Porto broke all the records regarding students and researchers mobility programmes.

Till the end of the school year 2018/2019, U.Porto welcomed 2526 students from 70 nationalities, including over 1000 students from Brazil, 239 from the neighbouring Spain, 224 from Italy, 119 from Germany and 105 from Poland. The most sought after Faculties are the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Fine Arts.

Moreover, there are other countries adding to this "Top 5", including Macau, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Russia, Israel, Egypt, India, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Australia, and many other.

These figures show the success of the internationalization strategy by the University of Porto over the past decade, mostly due to "the quality of student hosting in the U. Porto, as well as the safe, cosmopolitan and lively environment of the city", as stated by U. Porto officials.