There is an Eric Frank Russell novel “The Great Explosion” that deals with Earth rediscovering its long lost “colonies.” Of course, the fact that the entire eothos of a planet is summed up in the first contact, might put you off, but sterotypes do exist for a reason.

If you want to talk about meeting aliens, though, I recommend Eleanor Arnason’s “Ring of Swords” and “Woman of the Iron People”. Yeah the aliens are two armed bipeds, but she’s thought through her cultures and how they’d react to us Earthers.