Meeting people in Madrid

I am a 23 yr old soon to be grad student, staying in the Madrid area until the middle of July... mainly to practice my Spanish and do some travelling in Spain. Any suggestions for places to meet people? I am staying in an apartment in Alcala with a few local students but haven't met too many people I can practice my Spanish with as most students are busy studying for exams at this time...

Hi nicole4223! What YOU really need is to find yourself a good Spanish girlfriend (or boyfriend). The friend can be bilingual but when she/he introduces you to her/his friends those friends aren't as likely to speak English so... there you'll have your practice.

Maybe you could join us for our next Lunch one of these days. We seem to have one about once a month but it's mainly an English-speaking group with some Spaniards mixed in.

Anyone else have some ideas?

Saludos, MadridMan

Not sure if you are intereseted in working or not but I actually learned a lot of Spanish by babysitting young Spanish kids while I was in school in Spain. I was not embarassed to talk to the kids in Spanish and I could always tell by their expressions if I had made a gramatical error. Babysitting was the best "intercambio" I had - plus I got paid!

I am in your same situation, and I was checking out intercambios on LoQUo Madrid website. There seem to be many people who meet up from different countries to learn language from each other. I don't know, maybe you'd like to check it out?

Good luck-

pick up a copy of in madrid (or check out the website in-madrid.com) or TBS English magazine and check out the classifieds Intercambios, there are alot of people looking to practice English/Spanish.