Barcelona, the Catalan pearl on the Spanish coast. The city has a relaxed atmosphere, it does something to you! This is due to a great combination of beach, beautiful surroundings, many hotspots, Catalan culture and all this in one metropolis. Barcelona has a lot to offer, also in terms of fantastic Spanish gastronomy. The city has many different restaurants, bars and there are lots of markets. One of the most famous and biggest of Europe is the Mercat de la Boqueria on the popular and lively street La Rambla. For the football fans, Barcelona is of course known for the football club FC Barcelona who are based in the stadium 'Camp Nou'.
Moving for your internship in Spain is a big step and there will be a couple of big cultural differences. For example the dinner times are probably different from what you are used to, your coworkers might have lunch between 14:00 and 15:00. When you are going out for dinner most of the restaurants open their doors at 20:00 and it isn’t strange to go out for dinner at 22:00. Depending on where you are coming from the climate might be different because Spain has a mediterranean climate with warm summers and mild winters with a clear blue sky. The mediterranean climate has almost no rainfall, but when it rains it will come down like never before. Your internship in Spain will bring you in contact with the many Spanish dishes such as paella, tapas, Spanish ham and patatas bravas.
Finding the right accomodation in Barcelona is luckily not a very difficult task. There are many options to find a suitable room in Barcelona. We recommend some companies that we have a good experience with. First of all AllRoomies, they offer a 30% discount on the agency fee and a 8-10% discount on the monthly rent. Besides that we have a collaboration with Enter Coliving and Her Roomies. If you are interested please let us know. We will give you the contact details to arrange your accommodation.
In Spain you need for many different cause a NIE Number. A NIE Number is necessary to open a Spanish bankaccount or to receive your internship compensation. In Spain it is mandatory to request a NIE if you are staying in Spain for a period longer then 3 months, but in reality not everyone lives up to this rule. Read here more about the NIE Number.
Spanish is one of the most spoken languages on the planet. When you choose your internship in Barcelona you are in luck that you are able to practice this every day with friends, colleagues or just at any store. To give your development in the Spanish language a boost, it is a great idea to follow a Spanish language course. To help you out we have a partnership with Expanish, one of the best language schools in the city offering our students a discount of 20%. These courses are also given in the evening so you are able to go after your internship.
Barcelona is the perfect city to travel by bike from A to B. The bike rental El Ciclo offers students of AE Internships a discount of 10% when they rent a bike. Besides that they also offer a discount on the purchase of a second hand bike. When the internship is over El Ciclo can also buy the bike back from you. They also offer a 10% discount on the bike rental for tours in the city which might be good when you have visitors over.
Barcelona also has its own system named Bicicing. These are the red bikes that are available all over town. This is only for citizens of Barcelona and for this you also need a NIE number to use these bikes. Bicing costs €50,- per year and you can use the bike for 30 minutes at a time. If you go over the 30 minutes you pay €0,75 for the next 30 minutes and after 2 hours you have to pay a €4,50 fine.
Barcelona has a large metrosystem that goes under the whole city and there are also many city busses that are riding the whole day. For students under 25 year there is a metro card namend T-Jove, which you can use the public transport non restricted for 3 months for only €80,-. You can purchase the T-Jove on the website and pick up the card at the machines in the metrostations.
Make sure you are wel insured during you internship. Next to a health insurance it is wise to take a travel insurance. If you have a continous travel insurence, check then if this covers your whole internship period. Often they have a limit to the period that you are insured for you time abroad.
Of course we hope you won't need this during your internship in Barcelona. If something happens anyways we have a good experience with Barcelona Family Doctor. This general practitioner is run by a Dutch doctor and they also have online consultation.
You can contact Dr. Line Hollmann through info@barcelonafamilydoctor.com or through +34616885104.
Every semester we have multiple students starting their internship at the same time and we create a Whatsapp groups chat. When you want to be added to the chat let your contact person at AE know. In this groups chat you will get to know other interns from AE Internships.
Every semester we organize a welcome evening for students that found their internship through AE Internships in Barcelona. This is the perfect way to get to know other students in this new big city. You can have a look at our Instagram and see our previous events. During our last event we did a cycling tour at El Ciclo. During this tour we saw the less touristic hotspots of Barcelona. Afterwards we went out for dinner at Roots & Rolls, a vegan restaurant with chicken nuggets, sushi and popcorn. To finish the night off we went out for cocktails and enjoyed some Dutch snacks at Pax49.
Of course AE Internships offers support when ever you have any complications of questions during your internship.
If there are any questions in response to this information please let us know!
Un saludo,
Team AE Internships
