The fine nuances of international relations

Friday night, 9:15 pm.

Our doorbell rings.

I answer it to find three people I have never seen before on my doorstep - a middle-aged gentleman, a lady and a girl. He starts to mention our house and Eric O (a friend of Marc's at work).

Luckily Marc had mentioned to me (in passing) that there was a new Turk at work that was looking for a place to live, but that he was fully booked with appointments for the weekend and would call Marc on Monday if he hadn't bought somewhere.

2+2 = this must be the guy.

I am gracious - I invite them in. They resist - standing out in the rain. I say, no please, of course you must come in. The resist again.

I am not clear on why they have rung our doorbell at 9:15 if they don't want to come in. I ask a last time and yes, they come in.

We sit in the living room. I offer drinks - he declines, she accepts. The child looks confused. I foolishly offer apple juice thinking I have lots in the fridge. I don't, I fill the 2 glasses best I can and take them out to the living room. He looks expectantly and I say "Would you like something?" and he says "yes, the same". So I hunt in the basement and find some juice boxes I cut open and pour into a glass.

We make small talk for about 30 minutes - difficult small talk as his grasp on English is somewhat tenuous and she relies on him to speak for her for the most part. I am not faulting them - I don't know a single word in Turkish I realize and lamely throw out that we were in Turkey last summer.

Worried that they will be offended that we did not go on a single excursion and spent the entire week at the resort - I say something really bright like "Unfortunately we were there the week they were bombing and so we stayed at the resort."

Open mouth insert foot and half my leg. Because discussing the fragile politics of Turkey entering the EU (the bombs were aimed at tourists by a group against entrance into the EU) is FAR better than saying we were more into chilling on the beach. Good one Trace!

In an effort to recuperate we switch quickly to safe topics... schools, Luxembourg and the mens' common employer.

I am still not clear on why they are in my house. But I try to be charming and hospitable because they have only been in the country for three weeks. This is what we do here - offer advice on what grocery store has what, what activities are of interest, discuss the local English weekly newspaper... remember how difficult our adjustment period was and offer what we can.

After a somewhat strained half hour, and as they ask a few questions about the house, I ask if they are interested in seeing it - but stating very clearly that my children are asleep in bed (this had been mentioned before). They jump up, eager to take a look so I think "Okay, so they are interested in the house."

We do the tour. We describe our house in detail, the renovations, the addition, the garden. They follow us upstairs and even go as far as to poke their heads into the rooms of our sleeping children (I mean it's the exact same room on both floors!). They visit our attic, and then all of the rooms in our basement.

At the end they ask the price. We tell them. Then they discuss prices for real estate in Luxembourg. From this conversation we glean that they are looking at apartments. We have a lovely house but they are not looking for a house.

?
??
???

They leave. I say (and mean, because she is a nice lady) that if there is anything I can do to let me know. She invites me for coffee one day.

And Marc and I look at each other and both say "What the??" at the same time.

We don't mind that they stopped by unannounced. Or that they weren't looking for a house, but rather an apartment. We don't mind the time we spent talking to them as there were some interesting points.

What we find strange is that they poked around our house, in our SLEEPING childrens' rooms when they had no intention of buying the house at all.

No?