Once you arrive to a new country one of the things you need the most is meeting people, making friends. It's important to build your little family, it gives you a sense of belonging and really comforts you on the times when you feel homesick and lonely.
Before leaving my home town I just looked for groups in Facebook to find out if there was a Facebook group of people of my own country living in the Silicon Valley area. There was one, and there just happen to be a post of a girl who had just arrived to the area, looking for new friends.
I contacted her, I told her we would be there in a couple of months and that maybe we could meet up then. She was nice and explained to me some things about the area... When we arrived a few months later we met. Today we are still good friends.
Once here, I decided that I had to meet more people. As I have a daughter it was an easy path to try to find a group of people who also had kids around her age, and then it was when I discovered Meetup.
Meetup is a website where you can find all kinds of groups, think of any hobby or interest and I'm sure you'll find it in there! Parenting, playdates, sports, languages, hanging out... whatever...
You basically join the groups you are interested in and look at its calendar of events, and you can join whatever event you are interested in going. Some of the groups charge you a little fee to help cover the expenses of having the group (group starters have to pay Meetup an annual fee).
In the beginning I joined a group called Expat parents in the Bay Area and also Bay Area Babies... The friend I mentioned before whas a member of one of these groups and she came with me to the first meet up, but afterwards I was on my own.
After having attended to a couple of playdates of these groups I was ready to move to the next level, and join other kinds of groups based on other things, not only parents groups, and this way I found very nice groups and made good friends:
South Bay H4 Visa Holders support group
If you have an H4 Visa, you are not allowed to have a paid job, so if you don't have kids or they are in school you have a lot of free time and sometimes it's difficult to cope with that (some of you might think I'm crazy, but not having a job can be devastating if you don't find yourself a routine and people to spend time with).
So when I found this group I was very happy and felt very comforted. They organise trips, lunches, coffees, sports activities during the day, while the spouses are at work and kids are at school.
What I found here was also an escape from maternity. I was with people that had other conversation matters other than kids.
Bay area women midweek hiking group
I really like hiking and going to the woods and mountains, and in this group I found a group of women with this same hobby. They meet once or twice a week and go for a hike. They cover the full Bay Area, and sometimes meet in the north and other times in the south. I discovered beautiful places with this group and then I take my husband and daugther there on weekends.
The Bay Area international French speakers
I joined this group very recently and I am loving it so far. They meet different times of the week to practise French.
Before my Californian life I used to work in a French company and practised my French on a daily basis, but since I got here it became rusty. That's why I looked for a French group and found this one... I feel I am going to make a good friend or two in this group.
Meeting new people or going to meetups at a certain age puts you totally out of your comfort zone, constantly, and this has changed my personality.
In Barcelona, where I am from, I've had the same friends for ages and I very rarely met new people. These last 2 years have been crazy and I have met as many people as in my whole previous life, and what's most intersting, people from everywhere in the world. This really opens your mind and changes your view of the world.
I would recommend everybody to join a Meetup group, even in your own city... it really makes you a more outging person, and that's always a good thing.
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