Murcia has quite a lot of things to offer in terms of spending the free time. I wasn’t expecting to have so many foreigners of different nationalities here as it’s not a very touristic or important city of Spain, yet there are plenty.
Not only that the universities have hundreds of foreigners, but it seems to be a city that attracts a lot of nationalities for businesses or jobs. A quite big community is that of US Americans who are teaching English in private schools or institutions.
If you’re curious to meet new people and especially see the ‘exotic’ side of Murcia through its foreigners, than the tandem meetings are a perfect way to do so. Except Sunday, there are tandem meetings every day, even 2 times per day in some cases. They take place in bars or coffee shops where anyone can join and it brings both Murcians and foreigners together.
The purpose of the meetings is to practice English, Spanish or both so the language exchange goes both ways and it’s quite fruitful. There is no specific topic to talk about, there is no facilitation or anything like it. You just sit at the table you want, speak with whoever you want, about whatever you want.
I chose to go on Thursdays perhaps because I enjoy a lot Ficciones, the bar where it takes place. It has a mixture of new and vintage, it has books that you can read (yay!), has a veeeery wide collection of old movies on DVDs, and the people that join this particular tandem are very nice. As Ficciones closes around 11-12 at night, we often end up in Revolver, a pub-club with different styles of music that I enjoy a lot.
I would like to start such a club when I go back as Baia Mare, the city where I come from, has lots of foreign volunteers and students that could benefit more from the interactions with the locals.