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Welcome to the New in Barcelona community!
Hello, my name is Ricardo de la Torre and I’m the owner of the expat community ‘New in Barcelona’ and controller of the below Facebook communities:
- New in Barcelona
- Expats: Living in Barcelona
- Language Exchange in Barcelona
- Jobs for Expats in Barcelona
- Room for Rent in a Shared Flat Barcelona
WELCOME to our WhatsApp communities! I will explain to you how the community works…
About the Community
Basically, these groups are meant to help members of the community connect with each other and suggest or join different activities in Barcelona, or support each other on topics like job and apartment searching. Ultimately, we hope you meet friends and feel a sense of community, especially if you’ve just arrived in the city.
I have around 100 WhatsApp groups and 2 Telegram groups, some of which are used for events I regularly organize within the community (weekly meetups, weekend excursions, language exchanges) and others which are open for members to suggest activities and plan activities together (eg. Beach volleyball, running, dancing, festivals). You can find the full list of WhatsApp groups here.
We have regular weekly meetings every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday at La Terraza de La Marina Bar-Restaurant (Carrer de la Marina 22)
I also regularly organize excursions such as walking tours around Barcelona (7-24km) and day trips to places like Montserrat, Girona, Sitges, and more. In the summer we enjoy organizing community picnics in the park or beach and sometimes we even organize group dinners and karaoke nights. You can check the upcoming calendar here to see what we have planned for the month.
Every 2 months we also organize one big BIMONTHLY MEETUP where we expect between 70 to 130 attendees – Mark your calendar and don’t miss out!
We suggest you to join the WhatsApp sub-groups of your interests to connect with people who have common interests, for example if you want to meet people for board games, bachata dancing, going to the cinema, or playing a particular sport.
In the events that I do, there are many members who join regularly so you can easily form friendships, and also there will always be new people who are joining for the first time.
Suggestions and Rules for the WhatsApp Groups
Firstly, we suggest to put the WhatsApp group messages on silent because we don’t want you to receive too many notifications, especially if someone writes at 5am in the morning! (In the WhatsApp group go to the Settings in the top right corner and choose ‘Mute notifications’)
Secondly, please remember that all New in Barcelona events are free for you to attend* and I do not get paid as the organizer – This is my hobby for after work! (*At bar meetings it’s expected to buy at least one drink to support the bar, and we do occasionally organize dinners or events where we will always mention the cost beforehand.)
The Rules:
- Respect the other people
- Do not harass fellow group members or send unsolicited private messages. If they don’t want to talk with you in private, respect it. This is not Tinder. We have a Singles group but it is also not allowed to send private messages there unless someone explicitly gives their consent in the group chat. If someone writes to you in private who you don’t know and don’t want to interact with, please send me a screenshot so that I can send them a warning and repeat the rules.
- I have the right to kick anyone out of the group who does not follow the rules
- Yellow card and warning for first offence
- Red card and you are expelled for 3 months
- Forever-ban if you have done something very bad
- I will announce yellow and red cards publicly in the group chat as well as privately.
- Do not advertise events which are similar to New in Barcelona events but by other meetup organizations (Eg. Recurring language exchanges, activities which conflict with New In Barcelona meetups). You can talk in private with the fellow members that are your friends already and attend these activities, but please do not advertise as it might attract less people to our existing meetings.
- Acceptable: Invitations to a concert, jazz club, theater, cinema, dinner, sport
- Unacceptable: Invitations to attend a Couchsurfing meetup on the same evening as our Friday meetup
- Acceptable: Speaking with your NIB friends in private to go to another event
- Please avoid talking about controversial topics such as religion and politics – Keep it light-hearted!
- No discussions about drugs (Alcohol is okay)
- By joining our groups you consent to the following:
- Occasional private messages from admin to inform you about special events (Eg. Bimonthly meetups)
- Group photos and videos during the events which we used for marketing
Support the Community:
This community is people-powered and we highly value any support you can offer, especially liking, following, subscribing, and sharing our social media efforts:
Please take 1 minute to subscribe and follow our accounts – it helps us a lot!
THANK YOU and enjoy being part of the New in Barcelona community!
How to get your FREE Renfe train pass for Barcelona
The Renfe/Rodalies train pass was introduced to encourage travel by train at the end of 2022, and the offer is still going until December 2023. You can find the full info here in Spanish but we will give a summary below.
The Rodalies trains are the ones that take you to cities surrounding Barcelona (but not ALL the trains. Keep an eye out for the R trains). Here is a link to the map of the trains and zones. As you can see, there are 6 zones total.
The pass will give you unlimited travel on these trains for the time period when you bought it. Those time periods are as follows:
- 1 Jan 2023 – 30 Apr 2023
- 1 May 2023 – 31 Aug 2023
- 1 Sep 2023 – 31 Dec 2023
Cost: The ticket is “free” however requires a deposit of €10. If you complete 16 or more trips (8 round trips), the deposit will be returned to you. If you don’t do 16 trips, then still €10 is not a bad price to pay for this service (It’s already worth it after 2 trips depending on where you are going).
A few important notes:
- You must have a DNI/NIE/TIE/Passport number to get the pass, and the ticket is not transferable so you can’t share with anyone
- You will get a paper ticket which looks similar to a metro ticket. It’s important you do not lose this paper ticket, as you will not be able to get a replacement!
- It is valid for most but not all of the R-trains. You can take the R1, R2 Nord, R2, R2 Sud, R3 (direction Sant Quirze de Besora), R4, R7 and R8.
- After you complete a trip and return to Barcelona, for the next 15 minutes you can use the same ticket to transfer via the metro in order to go home.
- Travel to Montserrat: Note that the ticket is NOT valid for the R5 which takes you directly to Aeri de Montserrat to visit the mountain, however you can take the R4 and change trains in Martorell Central (The price from here is about 6.80 EUR round trip) (The price to go directly on the R5 from Pl. Espana is about 11.50 round trip).
How to get the ticket from the ticket machines
Firstly, note that you should take it from the orange Rodalies ticket machines which are found in the Rodalies stations (Sants, Passeig de Gracia, Pl. Catalunya, Arc de Triomf, Estacio de Franca, El Clot-Arago, La Sagrera being the most central stations but check the map to see if there is one closer to your home)
Just to make things more complicated, Rodalies has 2 types of machines which function a bit differently, so pay attention to which type of machine you find:
The next steps are quite simple on both machines. (Scroll down for instructions with the old machine.)
New machines*:
*Easier to use than the old machines, we recommend finding one of these!
You will see on the main screen a big orange button on the button that mentions the abono gratuito. Click that button.
Then, simply enter your DNI/NIE/TIE/Passport #
Make sure on the next page that you select the destination that is in Zone 6. It doesn’t matter the destination, because you can use the ticket on all Rodalies lines. For example, we suggest choosing Manresa.
Then, make the payment of 10 EUR (We recommend using a card so that you can get your money back on that account).
The machine will print you a card. Don’t lose it 🙂
Old machines:
You will see a screen with many options. Choose “Abonament recurrent”
Next, it will ask for your phone number AND your ID number (DNI/NIE/TIE/Passport). Enter this information and continue.
Make sure on the next page that you select the destination that is in Zone 6. It doesn’t matter the destination, because you can use the ticket on all Rodalies lines. For example, we suggest choosing Manresa.
Then, you can finalize your payment of the 10 EUR deposit. We recommend using a card so that Renfe can return your money on this account.
The machine will print you a card. Don’t lose it 🙂
Now you can enjoy trips to many cool places surrounding Barcelona, and even join New in Barcelona group day trips to places like Sitges, Manresa, Vic, Castelldefels, Sant Pol de Mar, and more! (See here some pictures of the trips we have taken!)
Have anything to add to this information or find a mistake? Please let us know!