Chrismast back in The Dam

First of all apologies for blogging about the past, It's the first of April and I am very much of aware of that bu I've been trying to find the time out of my busy capitalist life style to get on here..

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a great start to the New Year; we all know start as you mean to go on..should imagine a lot of you were extremely drunk when 2012 crept in as is the usual way to celebrate the most overrated time of the year..anyway, less negativity throughout the rest of the blog I promise.

..So it is the 27th year of my life as 2011 becomes 2012...sh*t...27? Slowly but surely creeping up to the big 30 - which scares the shit out of me but once some very intelligent  man once said "Time waits for no man" and they were not wrong. Alas.. onto my adventures below:

Singapore -> Amsterdam -> Sunderland -> Amsterdam -> Singapore 

So, a 14 hour flight back to Amsterdam but at the time to be honest I couldn't have cared if the flight was 140 hour I was desperate to get back to Amsterdam. Four months in Singapore and I was missing Europe as a whole never mind my special little friends at the Coffee Shops; luckily for me Claudio was on the same flight, we had both convinced our bosses it would be beneficial for us to work from Amsterdam over Christmas..ahem it in fact left us with more annual leave for 2012 and also to be back in Amsterdam was simply priceless; evenings spent in the clouds in the beautiful little city I used to call home..

The old hangout...Blues Brothers 

My time back in Amsterdam over the festive period was of mixed emotions; main emotion for me was that I had missed this dirty little windy city and its attributes both positive and negative and that I was indeed happy to be back, very happy. The second emotion was that of Sadness, Sadness that I didn't live here anymore; I spent two full years here, straight from University, I started to become a man here, I met wonderful people mainly inside work..which is where the sadness really kicked in. After the Big D made it's reorganization announcement last year the office where I had so many happy times has taken on a metamorphosis of depression, solitude and has this swamp like negative atmosphere induced by the simple fact the wonderful and diverse pool of people who made Customer Service what it was will soon go, May 31st and the entire CS Operations in Amsterdam will cease it exists. 

I am so thankful that I got to spend two years here; yes it was hard work; late into the evenings and on throughout some weekends but without all the strife I would not have meant the scores of wonderful people who aided me on my journey in life and the journey from boyhood into manhood.

Below a few pictures of some of the great people I miss..

Claudio Claps (Left) and Marijn Baaij (Right) - The Handsome Duo 

The lovely Serbian Jelena Dzida

The beautiful Slovakian Erik Linhartova - before you ask, no I didn't..

Rebecca Smith (Left) and Diedre White (Right)

The Epic wonderful and perpetually lovely Dieuwke Swain - hope she doesn't get offended but kind of my like my substitute Mother away from home :)

"Do not dwell on the past, do not dream to the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment" - Buddha

If any of my old colleagues or friends from Amsterdam are reading this, thank you for everything and I will see you again :)

Thanks for reading...
TGM