Sunday, June 3, 2012

Our very first fête des voisins, or, the social butterflies continue fluttering

A Parisian instituted the "fête des voisins" in France in the 17th district of Paris in 1999. More and more neighborhoods have joined the event as the years have gone by, but this is the first year that any place we have lived has participated. One of our neighbors surveyed the rest of us to see if we were interested, and just about everyone said yes, so we had our first block party ever on Friday, on the basketball court. 

It didn't start until 8 pm, to give everyone time to get home from work. Fortunately, it stays light until almost 11 pm these days, and when it got dark, they got out the lanterns and citronella candles. 

Many of our neighbors are original homeowners / builders, so have been here for almost 30 years now. But that didn't make them any less welcoming to those of us who haven't been here as long. 

We had a good evening getting to know our neighbors better, and we plan to attend the village party in two weeks, to continue our social-butterfly momentum.

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