Opportunities in Granada

After 4 months living in Granada I may be a little bit bias but I believe it is one of the best places in the world! It is a great place to live, especially as an Erasmus student, as it is hard to get bored when there are so many opportunities to get involved with and my advice to anyone who ends up coming to Granada is to try and get involved with as much as you can.

Firstly, there are so many groups that are there solely to make your experience in Granada as amazing as possible. The three main groups are ESN (Erasmus Student Network), Best Life and Emycet. They offer everything from bar crawls, tapas nights and trips to Seville, Barcelona, Ibiza, Madrid, Morocco and many more places. As everything is all organised by the organisation, it is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to meet new people and travel. Also, if you become a member of ESN you will get a card that offers discounts on so many useful things, such as hostels and transport. You can also get 15% off 8 Ryanair flights, as well as free luggage up to 20kg. So, if you over pack and bring way more stuff with you than you need it is ideal!

Even though Granada is obviously the best place in the world, I have to admit that there is one negative to living in a city so full of Erasmus students and that is how easy it is to forget to speak Spanish (which sounds crazy but too many times I have got to 10pm and realised that I haven’t spoken a word of Spanish due to the fact I am surrounded by people who (like in the whole of Europe) speak amazing English! If you are the same as me then luckily in Granada there are many language exchanges or ‘intercambios’ where you can go and practice Spanish. They are such great places to meet people and force yourself to speak. What makes it so good is that everybody there is in the same boat, which makes speaking a different language a little less daunting. Plus there is food and alcohol which always helps to break the ice! The two best ones are on Mondays and Tuesdays. The one on Monday can be found at Lemon Rock and the one on Tuesday is at Entresuelo.

There are also many clubs that are available through the university. For example, there is a film club that meets once a week to watch and talk about a wide range of Spanish movies. It is such good thing to get involved with because it is great to practice your Spanish and meet people without the awkwardness that so often happens when trying to make new friends because you already have something to talk about.

These are just a few of the things Granada has to offer and the more you research and talk to other people, the more opportunities you will find.