January – March: Things I’ve Been Doing While Abandoning This Blog

I have to admit that the first quarter wasn’t super exciting travel-wise. But between London and Netherlands trips I got up to some other cool things.

Been There

UK: Cotswolds – Oxford

France: Paris

Done That

I escaped to the Cotswolds and I saw sheep, cute houses and lots of mud.

Oxford was a happy accident, but it was lovley following the footsteps of Harry and Alice.

In Paris, I hit 3 museums in the 30 hours I was there and got lost 5 times while trying to reach the Eiffel Tower.

In London I

– Gave V&A another chance – and still didn’t like it too much

– Went to the ABBA exhibition – I enjoyed it despite the price I paid for it

– Spent a long evening getting dazzled by the lights of Lumiere London – well most of them

– Watched lots of movies – Isle of Dogs, Downsizing, the Florida Project and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri being my favourites

– Checked out the T-Shirt exhibition at the Fashion & Textile Museum – it’s still on on, so head down if you are up for some T-Fun
– Saw lots of posters and packages at the Made in North Korea exhibtion – I liked the idea, but it turned out to be more like an article on Bored Panda

– Walked around the Wes Anderson Isle of Dogs pop-up like a kid in a candyshop

Bucketlist Moments?
Going to the Cotswolds is literally on my 2018 bucketlist, so go me! But the joy of randomly coming across the Isle of Dogs pop-up is burned in my heart forever.

Lowlights
I got a text from my bank asking if I’d used my card in Florida. Sadly, I wasn’t living it up at Disneyland (I was sitting in my pyjamas watching Netflix in London), so had to deal with the fraud helpline. Thankfully the card was blocked before they could get their prize! I think my card got skimmed in Mexico as it was the last place I used an ATM. All ended well, but it could have been very different, so please learn from my mistake and be weary when you take cash out abroad.

One of the most exciting moments when flying from London to Amsterdam is getting fries drowned in satay sauce at this one place at Schiphol Airport. My tradition was: race through passport control, get a train ticket, buy the fries and rush to the train platform. Sadly this tradition died when this fries palace was replaced by a poor pretender, just one step above McD’s. R.I.P.

Lessons Learned
In London, I’ve queued more often outside foodplaces than tourist attractions, so having to queue was a bit of shock. And there I was thinking those the skip the line tickets were a fad … Turns out visitors to Paris are really into queueing and when you only have 30 hours it’s a shame to waste a big chunk of it waiting in line.

Have you learned any lessons you’d like to pass on?