Making friends!

After a week here, I only really had one problem. The family are lovely, the weather's been good and my job's pretty simple but I had started to feel a bit lonely. I hadn't really met anyone my own age, just children and parents, so needed to go out and make some friends. I'd heard about these intercambio de idiomas (language exchange) nights in bars so decided to try some out. The one I chose to go to was at J & J Books and Coffee near Noviciado metro station. There are intercambio nights there on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays starting at 8pm. Through my online research, I found that many of these other intercambio nights started later during the week, 9:30/10pm, which didn't suit me as well as I didn't want to go out so late at night.

I went for the first time on Wednesday and found my way there without any problems.  When I arrived, there were two guys standing outside speaking English so I knew I'd found the right place! Everyone there was very friendly and happy to talk. The way the intercambio works is that you stand around  with a couple of drinks in small groups of English and Spanish speakers and have a chat in both languages so that people can practise the one that they are learning at the same time as meeting new people and socialising. By the end of the night, I'd spoken to a mixture of Spanish, American and English people and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Unfortunately, I ended up speaking far more English than Spanish but I couldn't wait to return the next night to meet some more people!

Last night I returned to the bar where there was a slightly different crowd than the previous night. There were a couple of faces from the night before but the majority were new people to me. This time I spoke quite a bit more Spanish as I got chatting to a Colombian guy who seemed happy to talk in Spanish rather than English. The rest of our little group comprised of two German guys practising Spanish and the guy I'd met on the plane, the first time I'd seen him since arriving in Madrid! After the two evenings, I've gained a few phone numbers so maybe those will develop into friendships, although I will definitely continue going along to intercambio nights regardless. 

I would highly recommend them to anyone learning Spanish who happens to be in Madrid (they probably have them in other cities too). Even if you can't speak Spanish, it's a good place to meet other English speakers and help Spanish people out with learning English.