Fresh off a weekend trip to Stockholm, I resigned from my job of four years and had a great “leaving do” (as they say here in the UK) with my workmates. I’ll miss the entire Travelfusion crew, but especially the ones I worked with the closest. You know who you are. I got such a nice card from the team full of handwritten personal messages that actually meant something — not just your usual generic best of luck blah blahs. On top of that, I got a £40 gift certificate to Bodeans, the best BBQ place here in London, and a super friendly good-bye post on the Travelfusion blog.
Then the smaller group leaving dos began. Some dim sum here, a little Gordon’s Wine Bar there, and then *snap* it was off to Amsterdam for a few days’ adventure. Amsterdam is a strange place to me, very hit and miss, and the unforgivingly matter-of-fact attitude of the Dutch people takes a little getting used to. The great parts of the city are great, for example the superbly organized Van Gogh museum. The seedy parts are of course seedy, but you know what you’re getting into so it’s kind of okay. But the thing that’s usually of my favorite parts of traveling — the food — was consistently disappointing. Luckily on the last day we found this place called De Bakkerswinkel (Dutch for The Bakkerswinkle) which almost completely made up for all the other lackluster dining experiences! Amazing quiche, salad and ice tea.
Now it’s one day in London to run errands before traveling to Dublin to attend the wedding of two good friends. After that it’s just two short weeks before we leave London for Damascus. For the first time I feel it in a very real way that we are finally leaving, and it’s just more bitter and more sweet than ever.
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