When I said Hefei's changed, I meant: I'm not sure that locals are so willing give a practising foreigner the same time of day they might have given him, say, 10 years ago. For one, there's the increasing pace of life here. For two, there's nothing special anymore about a 老外 speaking good mandarin and one sees it almost as much in real life as one does on the television. Actually, things might have reached the point where it's the foreigners who can't speak after many years here who are getting the funny looks.
It's still easy to practise with random Chinese strangers (in a bar or wherever) and it's great that the 市民 are generous in that way. But I think you will have much less luck if you try to formalize it (say, every Thursday afternoon in a certain coffee shop). Almost everyone I met was just too busy and never lasted more than a month. The only people I saw regurlarly like that were my private tutors/teachers.
