What makes a city feel like home? Initially, I wanted to write a story about Warsaw, to share the city through my own perspective. And I will – spoiler alert – but not this time. Instead, I want to reflect on something bigger. In my opinion, Warsaw is a great place to live, even with its flaws and challenges. It has been my home for seven years, which got me thinking: how did I come to feel at home here?
Good public transport? Sure. Lots of parks and green spaces? Yes! Affordable housing? In which universe? Seriously, where? A hipster neighbourhood, with its art, coffee and vintage shops, and second hand bookstores to browse around on Saturdays? YES. The clubs where the DJ saved a life last night? Text me the address, I am on my way!
However, those excitements are not unique to Warsaw; and especially nowadays, can be found in many, many places – looking around, chasing the thrill, the butterflies, the sights, the familiar and the unknown.
What truly makes any city, any town, feel like home is the community – the people you meet. The ones who make you fall in love with the things around you, and with yourself. The ones who help you discover this new place, and in doing so, help you discover parts of yourself you never knew existed. The ones who make you feel like you’ve found a new home and help you build it from scratch. The ones who make you stay.
And that’s what sealed the deal for me and kept me here. In the end, it’s the people you meet and the people you love that, at least in some way, shape whether you stay or go. My love story with Warsaw would be incomplete without the incredible friends I have made here.
How it started
I moved to Poland for a job. One of the advantages of working in a large corporation is quickly finding others in the same boat. Even before arriving, I connected with a group of people; other mid-to-late twenties professionals, also relocating for work. Five strangers in a group chat soon became coworkers, and eventually, the first friends I made here. Sounds like a plot of a sitcom, right? At one point, these five strangers had the idea of renting a house together. Thankfully, that plan didn’t happen, though it left us with plenty of stories to laugh about later.
The night I arrived, a friend from home, I’d met years ago, was waiting for me at the airport. He took me for pizza, showed me around the city, where to get a phone and how to open a bank account. The settling began. We got drinks in a beautiful food hall, all decorated for Christmas. As I soaked in the city and daydreamed about starting my life in a place where I hardly knew anyone, someone I knew from my elementary school unexpectedly walked in; she’d been living in the Warsaw for some time, after completing her Masters. I laughed to myself and thought—the world is small, but my home country is even smaller (#OnlyMontenegrinThings).
As the months passed, the big city began to feel less foreign. I told myself I’d figure it out, just like everyone else does. It’s a strange concept – we think we are doing it all on our own. And in many ways, we are. But in so many ways, we lose ourselves without the people around us – the ones who guide us, even in the smallest ways, and help us find our place in an unfamiliar world.
Our lives are filled with countless small connections. In those first years, I think back to moments like making new friends at work, getting yelled at on the public transport for being too loud (but that’s just my voice), and trying to overcome the language barrier – from the post office staff to the workers at Żabka, who don’t nod or smile back. And not because they are rude, but because that’s just the Polish smile. All these moments made me feel connected to Warsaw.
How it’s going
From the first five strangers I met in the city, seven years later, I’m only close with two of them. It’s not about quantity at all – that’s just the story of adulthood. Sometimes, it is hard to hold onto friendships. Life gets busy, and we all get caught up in it. Even when you seem like a perfect match on paper, things don’t always work out. You drift apart, either for a clear reason or for none at all. Of all the bonds I formed that first winter, only a few endured the test of time, while others faded. As time went on, new people came into my life, and I was lucky enough to keep them
I also changed during this time – earning new things about myself, life, and what it means to feel like a foreigner. Living here, I’ve come to understand that you can’t be everything to everyone. You must first take care of yourself.
Warsaw will never be the same to me. Adulting here for the past seven years has taught me that there’s beauty in the ordinary. Joy is found in the everyday things: cooking together, friends opening their homes in moments of crisis, dancing, or learning to lose a board game gracefully without blaming others for cheating. It’s in repotting plants, leaving work in silence after an exhausting day, and still looking forward to the weekend. It’s in shared tears and laughs and brunches, and the quiet moments in between. It’s about the people who accept you for who you are.
These moments are what make life anywhere feel whole. By some random chance, I ended up in Poland – and who would have thought that my newfound family would be here? Together, we’ve shared both the joys and the pains of life. This is my love letter, not to the city, but to the people who made it feel like home.
The rest is still unwritten!