Occupying Your Freetime on a Business Trip?

Eric asks: "I just learned that my employer is sending me on a project abroad, in a medium size city for 3 months, starting early August. This will be a 12-hour flight from home and I have friends just an 8-hour drive from there. This is not the first time I am being sent on a remote location, but it used to be short trips (one week, typically), so I didn't have time to get really bored. What do you do while on a long business trip? how do you meet people when you cannot use your network of friends and don't have months to waste on building a new network?"

"Getting to know people from the opposite sex would be nice, but I'm also looking for chaps to simply share a beer with. I'm your average geek, with normal social skills, but it usually takes me a long time (around 3 to 6 months) to make friends in a new area. Hobbies that do not need to be pursued thoroughly are good too.

Here are a few things that I've thought about:

• join a sport club, though the sports I'm into (swimming, rollerblades, hockey on rollerblades) aren't the best for meeting people or aren't practiced everywhere
• lurk in clubs and bars, but going there by yourself spawn images of sorrow drowning in my mind
• take dancing lessons; a good way to meet girls, and it doesn't usually require to get a yearly membership
• learn a new skill; I've registered on a distance Spanish course some time ago; not very successful so far (mostly due to laziness)
• the geeky way: join an open-source project, though I'm not sure if I'll have a proper internet connection at the hotel

What do you do on your freetime, while away from your relatives for a couple of months?"

Comments

Do what I do..

[GiMP]

Nothing.

I work at home, I never leave but to go grocery shopping; even that is sometimes done by my wife.
I have some friends from highschool, but I see them only once every few months.

Of course, I'm terribly lonely; if it wasn't for having a wife, I'd have gone mad a long time ago.

Where are you going?

[janda]

You should have said where you were being sent. There's probably a /.er living there or close by.

For the rest of it, if you're religious, find the closet church and go the first sunday you're there. They'll love you.

Other then that, figure out what interests you, and try googling for "interest and city and state" or something.

Does this really need an "Ask Slashdot"?

[squiggleslash]

I would do the obvious: Take a stack of books and music with you, and if something happens, then that's great, otherwise you can get plenty of reading in.

I'm not sure why you needed to ask *us* to know that.