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Inside InterNations

Founder’s Diary: Barcelona

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Malte Zeeck, founder and co-CEO of InterNations, reports back from a visit to Spain where he was invited to an event by our Barcelona Community.

In contrast to Madrid, where I’ve been fairly frequently, it had been quite a long while – several years, in fact – since I last visited the InterNations Community in Barcelona. Therefore I was looking forward even more to this particular trip, excited to see for myself how much the community had grown and changed and what the local events were like.

InterNations Expat Blog_Founder's Diary_Barcelona_2015_Pic 4 What the two events – Madrid and Barcelona – did have in common was the lavish and themed decor at both venues: In Madrid, we’d celebrated at Kerala Fusión, a vibrant lounge bar with an Indian-Arab touch, and in Barcelona, the local Ambassador team invited their expat community to the Elephant Club, a glamorous restaurant and lounge club with an Asian-inspired flair, located in a 1920s mansion in central Barcelona.

Before the party started, I enjoyed a quiet dinner together with three of the four InterNations Ambassadors in Barcelona. (Giulio, the fourth member of the Ambassador team, was unfortunately out of town and couldn’t make it to that event.) The four of us formed quite the international little group.

InterNations Expat Blog_Founder's Diary_Barcelona_2015_Pic 1Apart from me, visiting from Germany, there was Paul, a Mexican expat who left his native country over a decade ago to study and work in Europe and who’s been living in Barcelona for the past three years; Elina, a Swiss-born Finnish national who has spent most of her life living overseas, for instance, in South America and the United Arab Emirates; and Anna, a Ukrainian lecturer, researcher and Ph.D. candidate at the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona, whose academic career has also taken her to Denmark, Switzerland, and the US.

After getting to know the trio personally, it was my pleasure to officially introduce them and thank them for their great commitment in my welcome speech at the event. The guest list – as diverse as it was long, with over 300 people from more than 50 nations signing up to attend the get-together – demonstrated very clearly how far Barcelona has come as an InterNations Community. InterNations Expat Blog_Founder's Diary_Barcelona_2015_Pic 2 Today, the community has about 19,000 members, which places it firmly among the top twenty InterNations Communities worldwide – though not quite among the global top ten, like Madrid, as Barcelona’s local patriots may be somewhat disappointed to hear.

Barcelona does have a large and varied InterNations Groups landscape, though, to rival that of Madrid in every way: from outdoor activities to wine-tasting to movie nights – not to mention our InterNations Barcelona Volunteer Group – there’s really something for everyone. I also enjoyed a brief chat with Veyza, a Peruvian expat and jazz enthusiast who runs our Jazz Live Music Group in Barcelona. InterNations Expat Blog_Founder's Diary_Barcelona_2015_Pic 3

Speaking of music: my speech was followed by a short live act, an impressive Bollywood Dance trio, and later that night, when the time for networking and animated conversation was over, the attendees could hit the dancefloor, where one of the Elephant’s top-notch DJs provided the soundtrack till the early hours of the morning.

(Image credit: Malte Zeeck / InterNations)

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Comments

  1. Hi guys, I’m from Argentina, now residing in Tampa, FL and looking to relocate to europe, Barcelona. Can I have more info? Gracias

    Barbara

  2. Malte Zeeck,

    I have enjoyed Internations in Madrid, Spain. I’ll be moving to Miami in December and I’ll be interested in joying Internations there, however, I’ve been told that the Internations events in Miami are mostly in South Beach which will be a problem for me since I’ll be living in Coral Gables thus I’ll have to drive there and since I’ll have to drive back, I’ll NOT be able to have a glass of wine or two. Once in a while South Beach will be great! but, to be fair to other members, why can some events take place in other areas such as the Miracle Mile, which has fabulous bars or other locations that are not South Beach.
    I would appreciate hearing from you concerning this matter, since some of my friends that are members of Internations have complained about this problem and don’t attend the events at the South Beach location because of the drive there and not being able to consume alcohol.

    Than you very much,
    Amparito Jones

    • Hi Amparito,

      Thank you for your feedback!

      We have taken a closer look at past events in Miami, most of which did take place in South Beach, though we also had InterNations Events in venues in downtown Miami. Regardless of location, all these events seem to have been quite popular and well-attended, so the choice of venue was apparently fine with the majority of guests. Nonetheless, we will pass on your input to the InterNations Ambassador team in Miami to see what they think.

      Best of luck with your upcoming move!
      Margit

  4. Thank you for such a well written piece of summary of your time in Spain. My name is Laura and I would be thrilled to learn more on how I can become an active participant for future events. Graduated last year with a post grad certificate in Public Relations Iam fluent in Italian and can do okay with French and Spanish. I would love to learn about opportunities within this community. Thank you. Grazie