Introducing ourselves

It is interesting how most cultures have some sort of norm in terms of how to meet and greet new neighbors. And unfortunately, a lot of the old cultural norms aren’t really observed anymore. In the States, the old standard was when a new neighbor moved into a neighborhood, within the first few weeks, the surrounding neighbors would come, bringing with them their warm welcome and often some cookies or a jello mold (I don’t know why the jello mold?). In France, the tradition (as far as I understand) was similar but reversed. Here, it was usually on the initiative of the new neighbor to reach out and introduce themselves to the established neighbors. 

Before moving into our apartment, I had thought a lot about how we could make this initial contact, but of course once we moved in, the busyness of cleaning, painting, and outfitting our place kind of distracted me from following through. But this weekend, our opportunity presented itself. 

In France, it is normal to post a note on the eve of a big party or construction work to give your neighbors fair warning that you will be making a lot of noise during a set period of time. Today we knew we would be installing our kitchen, thus creating a lot of noise for a couple days. One day for demo, one day for painting, and the third day (today) for installation. So we decided to stick a note along with some chocolate chip cookies in each neighbor’s mailbox, to introduce ourselves and also to inform them of our kitchen installation this weekend. 

I was a little nervous. Seeing as how we hadn’t run into any neighbors at all so far, I had no clue as to how they would feel about this gesture. But we have been so encouraged. Since the cookie & note delivery, we’ve met 3 neighbors (who stopped by to introduce themselves) and we were thanked by the “Gardienne” (who lives and works in the building). 

So who knows what will come next, but we are very pleased that this initial contact was a step in the right direction. I will post some pictures and details about our kitchen remodel soon.