My neighbor, the horny Turkish Man

 This weekend was freezing in the Netherlands. But today (of course, Monday, the day I go back to work) was just beautiful - 75 degrees and sunny with a light breeze. I got home from work and sat out on my balcony with a stack of books I've been meaning to get to (that book about the disintegration of Yugoslavia I'm supposed to be reading for work... yeah, not in the stack) a bag of speculoos cookies (basically the the best thing ever) and a cold drink, enjoying the view of the sun setting on the church down my street. 

I live on a street in a very nice part of town, so I always feel pretty safe here. My street is about half native Dutch and half foreigners, mostly Turkish. The Turkish population is pretty cool. They hang pretty cloths over their windows and play music at dusk and their children all run around the street with their toys. A Turkish family also run the restaurant down the street, and even though it smells really good, I have never seen a white person go in there. Two or three older Turkish men always linger outside the door, literally blocking the door, so I feel like I would be invading their club if I went there.

Anyways, I live on the fourth floor of an apartment building, and I have a balcony that faces the street, and, because Dutch streets are very narrow, my neighbors apartments and balconies. Two youngish Turkish guys were standing on the balcony across from me holding their little terrier dog over the rail (no idea why you would do this... that would be awful to pick up if you dropped it). They weren't speaking Dutch, so I had literally no clue what they were saying, but they seemed to be looking over at my balcony a lot.

Finally, they stopped putting the sweet puppy's life in danger, and the one holding it went inside. I kept reading, but now my neighbors attention was focused soley on me. I finally looked up and made eye contact.

He smiled at first and I felt encouraged, excited to be making friends with my neighbors. I smiled back.

Then, he put his hand down by his belt and made the universal symbol for "jerking off".

I have such friendly neighbors.