Take Me There: 5 Steps to Meeting New People in the City

“Someone once told to me the loneliest of people

are those that live in the city.”

How could this be so? Surrounded by bars, cafe’s and every other social sphere you could dream of.

When I moved to Sydney I truly believed networking and meeting new people would be a breeze. 2 months in and I was getting worried. Moving to a new city without a knowledge of geography or contacts?  Not so easy.

Luckily travelling has made me aware of the simplicity in approaching new people, but that doesn’t make it easy when you live and work in a new city. Routine kicks in and dynamics change.

Here are 5 steps to ensure you get out, meet new people and get your dose of social gratification!

1. Meet Up

Meet Up is a  site accessible to any city you’ve just moved to. You’ll soon realise that the people attending these events are in the same situation as you.

Pluck up the courage to meet some like minded people, whatever your hobby or interest you’ll find a group here. Highly recommended and it helped me out a lot.

2. Organised Trips & Events

Remember that long list of places and events you wanted to see when you moved to the city? Start ticking them off – book yourself a weekend trip or even a group tour. All you have to do is turn up and get talking!

3. Learn a Language / Join a Class

I soon signed up to an evening Spanish class as a way to meet people that shared an interest in the Spanish culture. There’s always an interesting reason to why people are studying a new language: holidays coming up, boyfriend speaks a different language, moving to Spain, one day I’d like to retire to Argentina…

It was also at this evening class that I met some very dear people to me. There’s more to class than making notes. Plus, a new language can take you down many new avenues.

4. Join a Sport / Join the Gym

I’ll admit, this wasn’t my first channel of meeting people. Who wants to make conversation to a sweaty stranger? (Unless they’re an athletic male, of course). But you’d be surprised, 20 women getting together for a Pilates class every week soon transforms into a gossip fest about those squidgy bits and a beautiful friendship is formed.

You can also tick off that new years resolution.

5. Work

OK so you’ve just spent the entire week working together and the last thing you want to do is spend your weekend socialising, too. Get past this awkward moment and you might just find that Office Clerk has something interesting to say. Maybe not, but it’s worth investigating. People have lives that you don’t talk about in the office.  A bottle of wine always helps.

A Friday night drink could be the ticket.

6. Housing

Viewing an open house sounds like an odd way to meet new people,  but at an open day  is a great way to meet others in the same situation. You could even become housemates in the near future. Funny how things work out if you just make a bit of effort to stay in touch.

Do you have any tricks to meeting new people in a new city?

Take Me There: A Look into Australia’s Country Party Life

We were invited up to the local bar to see a band called Floorboards, an event keenly scribbled into the community’s calendar months, possibly years, in advance.

After much anticipation we walked into the local bar where it became evident by the locals confident swagger and shaking hips that they had been there since mid-day, not just to secure seats for the show hours ahead of time, but to merrily pass the hours before such entertainment reached the little town of Krambach: home to cows and eccentrics.

We witnessed the fist two brave women (the two most shit faced) to strut their stuff on the dance-floor by the hour of 8(pm); it was just a few minutes before half the pub joined in and it seemed anyone who lived in Krambach over the age of 50 was ready for the stage, which the Floorboards appreciated, as we 20-somethings stood on the side safely resuming our dignity – or so we thought – sipping our gross 2 dollar wine and feeling very sophisticated in comparison.

If there is one thing to take from this bunch it is that they know how to enjoy themselves, as their big night continued on we decided to run away and were in bed by 10(pm); unsure if what we had seen was completely hilarious or rather a sad snippet of what happiness is to a small town.