I have told this story many times.
My first international Drupal event was DrupalSouth 2015 in Melbourne, Australia. I had only been to DrupalCamps in India and meetups in my city and had also spoken at those camps and meetups. I was comfortable there but I had no idea how it would be in another country. Also, this was my first trip outside India for a work related thing. I was alone and anxious. Very anxious.
On the first day of the conference, I misjudged the distance from my stay to the venue, missed the tram, and walked all the way. I was about 30 mins late for the keynote. I rushed inside the venue, picked up my badge, and tried to sneak into the keynote hall as quietly as possible. As soon as I walked in, I was greeted by my own photo on the screen.
To say that I was shocked is an understatement. I later found out that webchick had done all the hard work in collecting all the names of core contributors attending DrupalSouth and mentioned them on stage. I had just begun contributing to core at that time and I felt incredibly privileged to be mentioned on the stage, especially since I had not even had a real conversation with anyone yet. I had not even met webchick before then.
When I did meet webchick, kattekrab, larowlan, Jibran, cafeugo, KimPepper and so many other awesome people, they were very welcoming and I didn't even feel that this was my first meeting. I met many of these people and many others in the following Drupal events I was fortunate to attend.
This was one story of my first international Drupal event. There were a few more stories in DrupalSouth 2015, and many stories in each of the DrupalCons that followed, or DrupalDevDays, or other DrupalCamps in many different locations. I am incredibly grateful to be a part of this wonderful community.