Hi Friends! Alicia here. It’s been some weeks! I was off on vacation in the Northeast and went on some really fun excursions!
Did you see my video from whale watching? Check out my Instagram post Whale Watching.
Today’s post is a build on my first post around Getting Acquainted with your new city. Today we’re exploring, the Neighborhood!
Where you live is (naturally) where you will spend a ton of your time so you should take advantage and get to know your neighbors. This is not only good from a safety perspective, but you’ll see them often enough that can get good tips on places to check out in the area.
When I first moved to the Metro Detroit area, I lived in a really “hip and happening” (I’m sure no one says this nowadays 🙂 ) complex where there were pool parties, Dj’s and social events galore. It was fun but I didn’t really make any meaningful connections until I went to a “Meet & Greet Your Neighbors Night”.
A few months after settling in, I finally decided to attend one of these events I ended up meeting this really nice & fun couple from Brazil. I hit it off right away with the wife and we instantly made plans to meet up again. It happened to be around the time of Cinco de Mayo so we checked out a fun bar nearby with good margaritas.
Shortly thereafter my new friend and her hubby came to my birthday party and the friendship has grown ever since. We’ve had pool hangouts and game nights, watched the World Cup & Olympic matches together, and had a joint birthday party with our larger group of friends. We’ve also joined a German language meetup, and formed a small Spanish language class with some close friends. We go to regular professional networking events, and even collaborated on the logo for my blog!
All of these fun stories happened because I went to a meet & greet in my complex! Being new to a city is tough. Making friends can be tough. But when you step out of your comfort zone and give it a try anyway, you never know what will happen as a result!
So here’s my challenge to you, get to know your neighbors! Take these simple steps to get started!
- If the apartment complex is already active with social events and gatherings, attend one!
- If they don’t currently offer anything like this, speak to them about starting one. A lot of times, they are looking for resident engagement so if there is interest they’ll be happy to help out.
- If you feel so inspired and want to take the challenge further, start the initiative on your own! Be creative. Game nights, trivia, sports outings, and meet & greets are quite easy to organize. Give it a try!
- Lastly, always say “Hi” to your neighbors. This should be a no-brainer, but I feel sometimes the culture around apartment complexes is not to really speak to others, when in fact we should be doing the exact opposite. So be the change agent and get it started!
I hope these will help! Reach out to me here, or on social media to let me know how it goes with getting to know your neighbors!
Talk to you next time!
~Alicia
Friendships in the City 
What an honor to be mentioned on your blog! It’s pretty amazing how far a simple “Hi” can go. After more than 2 years of our first hi, our friendship keeps on being strong.
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