Cafés and Parks

Saturday, 16th of April 2016

If there is something quite important to have in a new city is a new café. Thatˋs right, a place where you can hang out, relax with a cup of tea while you read your book and just be around people.

When alone is difficult to meet new people, mainly because there is no way of doing it normally, without sounding a bit creepy in the process. All of us already had problems in this department, seeing a person that we might think is interesting but we are not brave enough to start the conversation, so we just stand there in our own corner hoping that they will be the ones to iniciate (thanks Nazifa for being the one strong enough to come up to me at our first day of college). 

Since I moved here on my own and not to actually study, it has been difficult to talk to people, I just have no idea on how to do it and with this problem the internet is not the best tool, since the only option seems to be to instal apps like Tinder, and we all know that no one there is looking for friends. 

So the process of finding a café near your house to create some routine is essencial because you will be forced to talk to people on a daily baisis, even if it is just to order and then you will have a space where you feel comfortable and where you can just be surrounded with other people, which is important to create a sense of community, even if you are not talking to them.

Another great place is the park, it turns out it became my favorite of all. When it is sunny outside and relatively hot, which here is around 17 degrees, you will see everyone out in Hyde Park walking their dogs, playing and throwing balls, having a picninc or just reading under a tree. 

A few days ago I decided to take part of this ritual and grabbed my book (the fifth one I am reading this week) and hop I went to sit under a tree to read for an hour or two. Not even 15 minutes went by when I realized my book was all full of drool and that there was a huge brown and white staffordshire terrier looking directly at me with a ball in his mounth. This huge but very cute dog was asking me to throw the ball so he could fetch it, I did so for a while and despite of his owner calling he decided to sit down near my feet resting, it was only after 10 minutes he decided it was time to leave. 

So despite of now knowing more dogs than people, these are the little things that make you feel a bit more part of the community and that is why is so important to do some of this tasks outside and not inside of the house all alone.

From a girl missing her own dog,

Mariana Fidalgo