Dear Diary

August began and it feels as though half the country is on holiday. The bakery has been closed for weeks. The cheese shop, as well. "Do you like Chinese food?" Berdein asks, "I will have you for dinner, but not for a little bit. My restaurant is closed. They are on holiday."
Berdein is my neighbor, across the hallway. She is in her seventies and has a skittish cat with a name I can't spell but can passably pronounce. I met her the first week we moved in, at a social gathering for the apartment complex. She spent her life collecting and selling antiques with her father, up until he passed, and her apartment boasts an impressive display of pewter and beautiful wooden furniture.

Berdein calls me once a week to ask "Ten o'clock or two o'clock this Friday?" Her "f's" sound like "v's". I always choose 2pm. She has adopted me into her weekly grocery shopping trips, since I do not have a car, and I appreciate it greatly. At 1:55pm on Grocery Day, I put my shoes on and stand by my door and listen for hers to open. "Hallo, Emily!" she greets me, and we ride down the elevator together. We exchange a few words, then ride the short 3 minute drive to Aldi in silence.

The first several times I felt awkward. Was I supposed to make small talk? I read that Dutch culture isn't big on that. Was it the language barrier? Her English far exceeds my Dutch, but it's still a challenge. I don't want to be an imposition, and hope she doesn't feel obligated to invite me. It's been weeks of this, and I am finally becoming more comfortable with the quite rides.

Berdein also invites me to the kringloop with her, the secondhand store, where she glances over the small display of truly antique items while I look for assorted kitchen knickknacks and lamps. So far she's only bought one item, a bronze crucifix for €3 that she immediately dates as from the 1830s. I ask if she's religious and she says she was raised Catholic. We talk about the antiques she's sold, and that a man once bought a clock from her for €10,000. I desperately want to know what this clock looked like.

After one grocery trip she tells me we were very quick. "Snel!" I say, and she grins and nods. Later that week I call her and invite her for dinner, completely in Dutch. My accent is horrible and I'm reading mostly from my translated script, but we settle the time and date without using any English. When the day comes, she tells Christopher my Dutch is getting very good, which is incredibly kind but a gross overstatement. Still, it's encouraging to hear, and Berdein has become my immediate motivation for learning.

Meike (pronounced like "Micah") lives three floors directly above us, exact same floor plan, but she owns her apartment and has made wonderful renovations to the kitchen. She tells me she loves to cook, and maybe will have us over for dinner sometime. I invite her for coffee and to meet my cat, after learning she has two cats of her own.

Meike is a very, very busy woman, but oh so friendly. She is on the board overseeing the apartment building, volunteers at the museum down the street, and has a full social life. We met her at the same gathering as Berdein, where she came over to greet us. "Emily and Christopher?" she repeated our names after the introduction. "That is such like a storybook, how romantic! Emilee and Chreestopher!" she said in a sing-song voice. I later learn she is the bass singer in a barbershop quintet choir.

A few months after the initial invite, Meike finally has a morning available to come for coffee. She sweeps in, singing praises of certain design choices and Liara's friendliness. I am secretly very pleased at the former compliments, because her apartment is immaculately chic and artsy.

It's still morning but the temperature is climbing, so I tell her "I'm going to be very American and ask, do you want your coffee hot or iced?" She gasps and says, "Ooh, iced, yes, that sounds lovely." I've set the table with croissants, strawberries, and chocolate truffles. "Emily, you are spoiling me!" she says. I forgot that Dutch culture is best encapsulated by "the one cookie thing", where when offered a treat you only take one, and here I have put out several.

Meike is 73 years young and endlessly gracious and interesting, telling me about her life and asking questions about mine. She is close friends with Berdein and thanks me for befriending her, to which I respond incredulously that Berdein is the one doing me the favor. Meike says that Berdein talks about how much she enjoys the weekly grocery trips with me, and I sigh in relief. She also tells me Berdein is autistic, and I suddenly understand our quiet grocery trips all the better.

The next day, I head to "The Aldi" with Berdein for our weekly shopping, feeling much more at ease with the silence. I let her strike up conversation as she wants, and no longer try to force any small talk.

It is August 31st, and this Friday we are finally having Chinese food with Berdein. The bakery has reopened, and we can get our favorite wit desembrood, sourdough, again. The weather is beginning to cool, there's been rainy days, and a public transit notice has been sent out about the infulx of travelers as school starts up.
Good bye, first summer in the Netherlands, and hello to autumn.