Job Discussion Forums

[gmjones]

Hello,

I'm going to work in Madrid and wondered if anyone could give me any advice on clubs/associations I could join (e.g.walking/freetime) to meet people there. Also I would like to study something in my spare time to practise my Spanish: how easy is it to enrol on courses there and are they expensive? Are there places other than the university where I could do this? Does anyone know of any organisations there that recruit volunteers for work in the city? Any advice on settling in would be appreciated! Thanks...

[Mouse]

sorry, don�t know madrid, but i�d guess that you�re on the right track. those kinds of opportunities are available in catalonia (where i live) and therefore almost definitely available in the capital. how good �s your spanish? if it�s quite functional, you can join the clubs like you�d join them back home (the biggest difficulty for me playing rugby in spain is that neither my castellano nor my catalan is especially hot -- they shout "he�s breaking through on the left!" and i go "eh?"). what kinds of things�d you be interested in?

[foss]

There's a good free paper called "In Madrid" - you might find copies lying around the Irish pubs and academies in the centre. It's written with the transient population in mind, with stacks of personal ads.

[Moore]

The Spanish are very big on further eductation (as in adult education) and there are loads of (fee paying) courses about. There are loads of schools offering ludicrously low rate for Spanish courses: no idea what the quality is like personally but have had good reports from mates, as long as you don�t mind being in fairly big groups. Thre are loads of people offering "intercambios" ie language exchanges, and also semi-organised evenings in certain bars on certain days of the week where people meet to exchange conversation (although some of these also seem to double as rather dubious speed dating nights for tragic late-thirties English teachers and left-on-the-shelf Spanish ladies)
Anyway, don�t worry, Spaniards are ludicrously sociable people. By the way, if you like football (soccer) there�s always a game to be joined in with in the bottom right hand dirt pitches of the Retiro park with the random South Americans and Brits who congregate there of a weekend evening.