Do not come to Toronto. Barcelona for me was the friendliest city. I sat down near the beach district (don't remember what it was called) and played guitar with a bunch of randoms and smoked joints while police strolled by and asked us how we were doing. It was surreal. Warm, beautiful, safe, the women in Barcelona are out of this world.
Let me offer a counterpoint on Barcelona, aside from the fact that it would be hard for you to get a visa or work in a company there without actually speaking at least Spanish, if not Catalan. Or find a company you would want to work for. Or the fact that the economy there is shit, despite being among the best in Spain.
1. The catalans are known all over Spain for being cold people. I don't mean cold as in mean, as they are quite nice, but they keep to themselves. You will not get an open arms welcome from the locals. Much like the French, it takes a long time to be welcomed as a true friend by the people there.
2. While Barcelona has tons of expats (Brits, Italians, French, Andalucians), skater kids, and an all around nice "hipster" subcultures, the truth is very few people ever really stay in Barcelona. You will have a very hard time making real long term friends. You can have a ton of fun for a short while, but not for the long haul.
Take it from a guy whose talked to literally hundreds of people who came to visit BCN for a short time (less than a year) and thought it was paradise. It really isn't. It could be if the economy was better, if there was more integration of outsiders and locals, if you would wait a decade or four, but that just isn't the Barcelona that exists now. Barcelona is built around tourism, and to tourists it's a paradise. But like everything built on tourism, it's a transient facade. If you want to have a blast for a few months, Barcelona might be your place, but not for anything serious.
The only Catalans I ever met were extremely open and welcoming. I knew them all for less than an hour, and they were all hugs and kisses, great company, and said their couch is always available if I'm in Barcelona and need a place to stay. You might be right, maybe they're generally more cold, but my experience was the opposite, so I had to add it for balance.
Yup, that's pretty much my experience too. I think locals are so used to foreigners in a tourist role that they don't want to get more deeply invested into people who may leave in a year or two anyways.
But i also think all this is true for most European cities, not just Barcelona.
