From your post: "I’ve had Catalan people tell me they prefer to speak English with me rather than Spanish"...."My experience is you will have to work very hard to befriend a local"
I think that this summarizes clearly one of the biggest issues: Real integration.
On the other hand, everybody in Madrid is from another part of Spain, and nobody has a problem with spanish language therefore is much easier to integrate and to make friends from different places. As said, the city is a furnace in summer, but is not much different to most places in Spain (including Barcelona). Maybe Madrid is a little hotter, but Valencia's beaches are at 1:35 h of distance in train, and Barcelona and Malaga at 2:45 hours or so from Madrid.
If you want a super-nice summer climate go to the Cantabrian coast, when it rains all day long each four days and you can sleep all night long :-). Irish climate.
I think that this summarizes clearly one of the biggest issues: Real integration.
On the other hand, everybody in Madrid is from another part of Spain, and nobody has a problem with spanish language therefore is much easier to integrate and to make friends from different places. As said, the city is a furnace in summer, but is not much different to most places in Spain (including Barcelona). Maybe Madrid is a little hotter, but Valencia's beaches are at 1:35 h of distance in train, and Barcelona and Malaga at 2:45 hours or so from Madrid.
If you want a super-nice summer climate go to the Cantabrian coast, when it rains all day long each four days and you can sleep all night long :-). Irish climate.