Every morning, a stranger stops by.

We've been able to talk to many Dutch people, as they keep walking into our apartment.

The first day, it was the chimney cleaners. They go door-to-door, and offer their services. Before we had access to the apartment, I was standing on the sidewalk waiting for FedEx, when this man comes by, hands me a pamphlet (in Dutch) and proceeds to explain to me (in Dutch) the importance of keeping your chimney clean. I was like, "Uhh . . . I just moved from Canada."

On our first morning, Ross & I awoke to a knock on the door. This was a surprise. A voice on the other side was explaining who he was (in Dutch), but the only word I could make out was "survey." So, I called, "We're not interested." through the door. Well, as it turns out, it was the man who owns the company we rent from, showing an appraiser around. It was kind of embarrassing, cause Ross & I didn't have a bed that first night, and just slept on the floor with our duvet and pillows on a mattress of the dirty clothes we wore through Spain. We looked like squatters (or "kraakers" as they call them here).

Later on that day, a older man just walked in. He didn't speak any English, but we figured he was a carpenter (the saw in his tool belt, and his coating of sawdust tipped us off). He wanted to fix a hole in our door. We assembled our Ikea furniture while he banged away at our front door. I thought it was kind of ironic; here he was repairing our door by hand, as Ross & I took turns trading off on the included screwdriver to assemble our futon in four easy steps.

Yesterday, the contractor who is renovating the apartment next door just walked in. He didn't know anyone was living here, so it was a mistake. I ended up chatting with him for a long time, and he was really helpful and nice. When I told him I was from Canada, he was like "My car's from Canada!" He's really impressed by the paint job – it's 21 years old, and there's still no sign of rust. He also told me that only nice people live in this area, and the best butcher in town is at the end of our street. This made Ross very happy.

Later on, the chimney cleaner from the first day came by again. He needed access to the neighbor's roof through our building. He helped me figure out how to use the clothes dryer. Not only is it in Dutch, all the symbols are different, too. Doing laundry is like playing Russian Roulette. . . you just don't really know what you're in for. The first load took six hours.

Today, someone rang our buzzer early in the morning. I didn't answer, cause I was tired of everyone just stopping by. I wonder if this is normal.

At least we won't be lonely.