Finally, Success!

I can fully appreciate what Nationals go through when they come to America not knowing anything.  Yesterday we received mail from the bank with our Pin card codes.  Exciting right, well not so fast.  The only thing we can read on the letter, besides our name and address, is the pin number.  Everything else in the letter is written in Dutch.  I guess it was arrogant of me to assume that it would be in English.  My response to my wife was "Now I know how Mexicans feel when they come to America".  This isn't a racist statement, but a statement of truth.  I now know what it is like to move to a country where everything is written in another language and not know what it says.  At least they speak English here which makes the transition a little easier.

Today I had a mission, get cable and internet (keep in mind we don't even have a TV yet, but we need cable and we need it now)!  My first attempt was online.  Not really an issue cause I use Google Chrome as my browser and it automatically translates any language to English for me.  I found the package I wanted but had further questions that I couldn't find the answers to.  I decided to click on the box that will have UPC call you to answer your questions.  I put in the phone number for the location I am at and they called right away. How I wish they made Google Chrome: Phone Edition.  I was not able to understand anything the recording was telling me.  So like most everyone else, I hit "0" thinking it would get me to a live person.  Nope.  Once you do that, the phone rings busy over and over.  I hung up and tried it again.  Can you guess what happened next? If you guessed the same as before you are right.  So I decided to look up UPC online and found a location very close to where I have been spending my days.  I drove to the location and parked in a parking spot.  As I was walking up I asked a women if this was paid parking.  She said yes and helped me with the marking meter.  She asked me where I was going to determine the amount of time to put on the meter.  I told her I was going to UPC and she said she worked there and would take me there.  After I couldn't get my card to work in the meter she said she would pay for my parking and walked with me to UPC.  Once at UPC I told the guy what I wanted and he was able to help me.  Within a matter of minutes I had internet and cable without a pin card or money, take that cell phone providers.  This by far has been the easiest transaction I have done to date in Amsterdam.  Oh I forgot to mention, the internet connection here is 150 mbps vs. the connection in the US which is about 50 mbps to 105 mbps.  

Feeling high from my transaction (and not from the weed that is sold here), I walked back to my car which was parked across the street from a Burger King.  I decided to go inside for a celebratory breakfast.   I was then shocked to find out that they stop serving breakfast at 11:30 am!  Take that US with your 10:30 am cut off.  Who the hell is ready to eat lunch at 10:30 am?  When in Rome, I decided to try something I have never had.  I introduce to you, the Breakfast Burger.

100% delicious.

Let me preface the following with, this is not an everyday thing I will be getting or would be getting.  I saw this on the menu and thought "I need to try that!"  This is not your typical breakfast sandwich.  Not really knowing what to expect I thought perhaps the term "breakfast burger" might have been miss translated considering yesterday we ate at KFC and I ordered a "Tower Burger".  This was not a burger at all. It was a bun with a breaded chicken patty on it.  Thinking this might be case here, I ordered it.  I was surprised that the translation was not mixed up.  This is really a breakfast burger. It is a hamburger bun with a Whopper patty topped with egg, cheese, bacon, tomato and mayonnaise.  It was really delicious and worth trying it once.

So what did I learn today?  Setting up cable/internet is the easiest thing I have done so far in Amsterdam and the breakfast burger is really a "breakfast burger" and it is delicious.