Every now and then Blogger.com insist on appearing in Dutch. All menus and all options are in Dutch. I don't know why, I can guess that it's because I'm connected to the Internet in Netherlands, but this is really inconvenient because I hardly speak any Dutch and there is no obvious way to change it to English. I plan on learning Dutch rather sooner than later. I plan on living here for quite a while and learning it makes my stay easier and more pleasurable. It is also sign of respect to learn the language of the country you're staying in. 

My first order from Amazon.com, that I ordered in The Netherlands, is here. It was shipped Monday the 7th and arrived today, Wednesday the 9th. Before lunch, I might add. The shortest time I can remember for an Amazon.com order to arrive in Iceland was about 1 week. Usually closer to 2-3 weeks. If I was in a hurry to get Amazon books I always had to order from Amazon.co.uk. Then it took 3-5 days to arrive. This was/is due to the curious way that the post office works. All mail from USA to Iceland goes to Europe first (I've heard Germany mentioned) and is then shipped to Iceland. If you look up these locations on a map you don't need to be Einstein to figure out that this doesn't make much sense. 

 Most food in supermarkets here in The Netherlands is little less than half the price it costs in Iceland. I've been "doing the Dutch lunch" at work. Almost every coworker goes to the supermarket in the lunchtime and buys milk, bread and some toppings. I've done the same thing except I go with coffee instead of milk. The strange thing is that I had the perfect opportunity to do the same thing back in Iceland, instead I usually went to nearest fast-food-restaurant. The restaurants here are slightly more than half the price they are in Iceland. The funny thing about restaurants here is that most of them are closed on Mondays and many of them are also closed on Tuesdays. There may be more open restaurants in Amsterdam, where there are more tourists, but here in the sleepy little village of Hoofddorp the restaurants just close. People have to eat home on those days, no matter if it's their birthday or if the kitchen caught fire. By the way if you like hamburgers you can be very happy if you're here on Monday, hamburgers here are among the worst I've tasted.