Restaurants

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Off to Heptonstall in Search of a Grave

Whew. Today was the first time in ages that I was able to get away for a few hours. I keep hoping to be able to get away to Leeds for a day, but that’s looking less and less likely. At least, I could look for something close by to do today and the answer was obvious, visit the ancient village of Heptonstall, which towers over Hebden Bridge. As the crow flies, I am about 0.5KM from the centre of Heptonstall, but I have to go all the way down into the valley, cross the river, and climb up to Heptonstall, so it is quite a trek!

Take a second here to check out the Heptonstall Parish website. You’ll know why when you get there. 😉

Heptonstall is a quaint place to visit for its churches and ancient buildings, but it is probably best known for being the final resting place of author Sylvia Plath. I don’t pretend to be a huge connoisseur of her (it’s been so long since I read The Bell Jar that I barely remember it), but she asked a question that I asked myself many times before setting off on my life by design:

Why can’t I try on different lives, like dresses, to see which one fits me and is most becoming?

Why not indeed? I sure didn’t find a valid answer.

Standing on my porch, sort of looking towards Heptonstall:

I headed down to the village, but where I normally turn left, I turned right to cross this bridge.

When I came home, there were archers practicing on this field.

Looking back towards Hebden before starting the climb up.

I somehow missed the staircase on the trip home and end up going down this super muddy path with only barbed wire to hold on to. That was fun.

At the top of the staircase, I followed a pretty path for a bit.

Climbing up above Hebden.

I eventually found myself on a very rough road with tons of caution signs to truck drivers.

My boots were a bit muddy.

I then had to walk along this road without a footpath.

Hebden’s layout is becoming clearer.

Just in case anyone has any doubt as to where I am, the slow sign being the wrong way should narrow it down.

Blue sky, just for a bit. I’d been switchbacking to this point and was at my final turn. I now have to follow that fence you see at the lower left. It’s now a straight climb to Heptonstall.

I loved how there were these super narrow breaks in the wall for people to squeeze through to reach sheds and footpaths.

I made it!

I made a note of the tearoom as I thought that I might have earned a cream tea!

There is a walk you can do in Heptonstall to see all the sights, but I really didn’t have that much time. So I headed straight for the churches and graveyards.

These are the ruins of the original village church.

And there’s new church.

Quoting from a plaque:

“The original church, dedicated to the martyred archbishop St Thomas à Becket, remained in use until the mid 19th century. Following storm damage in 1847, the decision was taken to raise money to build a replacement. The new church was completed in 1854 at a cost of £6,666. Instead of being demolished, the earlier building was left to become a ruin.”

It was very slippy and I had to be super cautious as I poked around.

Sylvia Plath is buried in the “overflow” cemetery across the street.

I had some limited instructions on my phone for how to find the grave, but of course, the stupid thing decided to die on me the second I arrived (despite having 85% battery life). I can’t wait to replace it!

So I walked among the gravestones looking for it. This stone caught my eye. Neville Longbottom is my favourite character in Harry Potter and I thought his unusual name was made up by JK Rowling. Nope!

I wandered the small graveyard a lot longer than I had planned to be there, looking for anything that had tributes by it. I eventually was able to discern a bit of a pattern to the dates on the markers and narrowed down in what rows Plath’s gravestone could be. On my final pass, I found it!

The gravestone has been damaged by vandals who removed “Hughes” from it, as some of her fans feel her estranged husband was to blame for her suicide.

Heading out, I passed this home with a lovely tower. Anyone who watches “Grand Designs” knows that a common way to update these old stone buildings in the UK and add on to them is by using glass and steel.

There were workers on site doing repairs to the church tower.

I did go for tea! 🙂 They didn’t have a cream tea per se, but I was able to order a pot of tea (Yorkshire blend), a raisin scone without butter, a pot of clotted cream, and a pot of jam à la carte for a total of £5. I was cold and tired and this was the prefect treat to get me home!

Of course, the walk down to Hebden was a lot quicker than the walk up to Heptonstall! I could see my front door from here!

I eventually found my way back to to the bridge after that harrowing downhill journey. It was only while going back over my photos that I realised where I missed a turn to get back to the staircase.

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Boosting Morale

Work has gone from a 1/10 to 15/10 on the busyness scale after a much longer holiday hiatus than I could have expected. The last few days have been trying and there’s currently no end in sight. I really can’t complain and since I did so much touristy stuff in Amsterdam, I’m not having much trouble getting back into the work mode I was in in Spain as it feels like I’ve been on holidays for a solid month! I’ve only had just enough small jobs to keep me going into the red, but barely. I’m grateful to be at a point in my freelancing career where I was able to weather a break like that easily and without too much stress.

At any rate, I’ve been putting together a care package for a friend and promised to get it off to her this week. So that left today or tomorrow and I was planning on tomorrow so I could get everything with a hard deadline off to the clients by tonight. But it was actually sunny today, so going down to the village made sense. I headed out around 1:30 and got the final items for my friend, then went to the post office where I was able to package it all up for her and send it out. It was a much more positive experience than the last time I tried to mail something from the UK.

Then, I had lunch and what I’d been craving all week, Marco’s pizza! I was going to get a pizza from Tesco as the ones I like (Dr. Oetker) were on offer for £1.50, regular £2.50, but I’d rather pay the extra £3.50 and get real pizza! You know what I mean. Pizza that looks like this:

This one wasn’t quite as good as the one I had the first time as the crust was cooked a bit too long, but I’m being fussy. I love the super garlicky oil the drizzled over top and that a thoughtful server brought me some tap water before I had a chance to ask him for it. What a treat lunch was!

I’m rather shocked by how far my money is going here. The exchange rate compared to last June is definitely helping (then, £50 got me about 92CAD and now it’s only about 82CAD!). I am nowhere near being able to have the standard of living I had in the Balkans or Mexico in terms of being able to eat out or for a beer whenever I want, but the UK is proving to be yet another country where my dollar goes further than it does in Canada. What a surprise.

Well, my sunny trip and lovely lunch certainly boosted my morale. Back to the grindstone I go!

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I’m Never Again Taking Sun for Granted

I know that sunny days here are going to be a glorious rarity and should be appreciated.

Just look at the flaming ball of gas in the sky. Isn’t it grand?!

I wanted to go into town to withdraw some money (there’s a Barclay’s here!), to get some washing up liquid since my host uses a fancy organic product that I don’t want to pay to replace, and to figure out where to catch my bus to Halifax tomorrow evening. I was going to finish my work, probably around 2:30 or 3:00 and then go down. By 1:30, the sunshine coming through the sitting room window was already starting to fade and I knew it would be a mistake to wait to go to town. I only had about 40 minutes of super easy work left and nearly five hours to get it in by the deadline, so that helped my decision.

Both my host here and at the Airbnb told me about a shortcut from the back of my house that would get me into town more quickly, saving at least five minutes. So I tried that, but it was rather treacherous since the surfaces were uneven and there was ICE in the shadows. It still felt much quicker! I should time both routes.

I photographed this building from above the other day. You can see here three levels of roads, the one I’m on, the one right above the roof of the building (you can see the stone retaining wall) that I took to go home, and above that, where the houses are, is the road I took to walk to my Spanish class.

Hebden Bridge must be really pretty in the summer.

Here’s the pub whereI had dinner the first night.

This is the main road through the Calder Valley. It can get quite backed up, as you can see in this picture.

A lot of people were walking around with fish and chips, which sounded like exactly what I wanted for lunch. But I’d researched the chippy (Crown Fisheries) and learned that while they apparently knew what they are doing, it was £7.50 for fish and chips, which seemed rather insane to me. I ended up walking by the restaurant and was able to check out the menu. Turns out the price quoted was for a sit down meal in their restaurant with bread (why?) and a pot of tea. Takeaway was £4.50. Sorry for the terrible picture, but my hands were full! 😀

OMG. 🙂 The fish was exactly how I like it, with a barely there super crunchy batter. The chips were fresh and flavourful. I will definitely eat there again, but ask for fewer chips since I really cannot eat a full portion of this meal. My food was wrapped up in a paper cone so that I could easily pick at the contents as I walked around. I didn’t like the little bits of paper that clung to my meal closer to the bottom of the cone, but I guess a little extra fibre never hurt anyone. 🙂 The piece of fish was huge and it was hot right to the end thanks to the way it was wrapped.

It really wasn’t that cold out, so I walked around seeing what was what in the town and finally found the bus stop I need, which is near the cinema. It is clear across the village from home, so it will be quite a trek there and back tomorrow night if I’m lucky enough to make the last bus as there is no way I’m taking the shortcut home in the dark!

Once I’d eaten as much as I could, I popped into a shop to get my washing up liquid and then it was time to head home. Only made one wrong turn in the search for the shortcut.

Here’s the start of the climb up to my house, which you can see at the top of the road. So really bad cobblestone, then uneven steps. I was gasping by the time I got to the top since I haven’t had to walk up hills much since Sarajevo. How quickly one gets out of shape! I got in about the time I would have gone out and, sure enough, it was already getting very cold and the sun was setting fast. So I made a good decision to head out early!

I really liked the vibe in Hebden Bridge this afternoon. I’d love to head down for a cream tea one afternoon as there are lots of tearooms and prices are quite reasonable compared what I experienced in larger cities. This is going to be a really pleasant location for the next three weeks or so with just enough divertissement to satisfy me if I get an itch to go out, but not so much as to distract me. The cinema is independent with a more “artsy” lineup of interesting films, but isn’t cheap (£7) so I’ll probably only go once, if at all.

Being here really makes me want to rewatch the series Happy Valley, set in Hebden Bridge and the area. I really recommend it if you like smart crime dramas with strong female leads.

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Free Manchester Walking Tour

Here are a couple of random bonus Amsterdam pics I forgot I took for my last Amsterdam post…

These cute cars are all over the city.

They can only go very slowly. I think they sound like a greater alternative to a scooter.

A sign outside Salsa Shop:

And part of Salsa Shop’s wall of deliciousness. There were probably 10 times as many bottles in the shop.

Okay, so on to Manchester.

The bed here is terrible so I’m shocked that I slept a solid six hours to 5AM. I then tried to go back to sleep for a few hours, but kept getting woken up by the other people in the building talking loudly as they went about their morning routine. Nothing I can fault anyone on; it’s what I expected. I was offered an air mattress to sleep on instead and I will try that tonight. I don’t have to be up tomorrow, so if should be able to get a little caught up on my sleep. I did have to be up today since I had booked a walking tour for 11.

So I got up around 8:30 and took my time with breakfast and coffee. That was pleasant, I have to say, and I’m glad I didn’t rush out the door. I was also glad that it wasn’t freezing in here at all, which I’d expected based on reviews. I did use two duvets, but slept under them in just a tee shirt and was comfortable. So, really, in the light of having had some sleep my dump was much homier than expected and I continue to have no regrets for having picked it.

Besides the price, the reason I picked this less than one-star accommodation was the proximity to public transport and ease of getting into Manchester. It was a straight shot on the train and short walk from the airport and a bus into Manchester can be taken about three blocks away. With the buses running every few minutes and the 5KM ride estimated to take 20 to 30 minutes, I left around 9:45. I had done my research ahead of time and learned that instead of buying a single fare for £2.90, I should buy a day pass for £4. In other cities I’ve visited, buying such a pass requires making at least three trips to be worth the purchase, but for Manchester, it’s a good deal on just a return trip!

Conveniently, the final stop on my route was about two blocks from where the Free Manchester Walking Tour started, at Sackville Gardens by the Alan Turing statue.

Manchester didn’t make much of an impression after I got off the bus, despite being full of these wonderful red brick buildings that I would learn were once warehouses for textiles.

I found Alan Turing‘s statue without any problems. If you do not know who Alan is, I am very sad. Please stop reading this blog and go watch the recent film The Imitation Game. It’s okay. I’ll wait. Can’t be bothered? 🙁 He was a brilliant mathematician who is pretty much the father of modern computing. He helped crack the Nazi Enigma code, which surely brought about an earlier end to WWII, saving thousands of lives. He was also gay at a time when being gay in the UK was illegal, was chemically castrated for his crime, and died young, presumably from suicide. He was a great man who deserved so much better. I wasn’t crazy about The Imitation Game (was a bit too familiar with the story to be wholly satisfied), but it revived interest in Alan and his work.

 

Why is Alan wearing a scarf? It’s a homeless initiative. Have an extra scarf? Drape it around Alan. Need a scarf? Alan should have one for you.

By the way, that statue is a disgrace and looks nothing like him!

These mosaics bring attention to import LGBT sites around Manchester.

I was super early early, so I found a café with Barcelona coffee prices (that’s a good thing after Amsterdam) and had a macchiato with cinnamon. Mmm.

When I got back to Alan’s statue, a crowd had start to gather and our host, Josh, soon showed up. Introductions were made and the tour started around 11:10. I’m just going to say here that Josh’s tour is one of the best I’ve been on and he was very interesting and funny, but my brain is so fried that I can barely remember anything he told us. 🙁

He started with a brief history of Manchester, separated into four epochs, from the Romans in AD 79, through the Middle Ages, during the Industrial Revolution, and then modern Manchester. His tour focuses on the latter two periods of Manchester’s history, but the intro helped to set the city into its historical context. I remember that “chester” means that there was a Roman fort in the environs and that the original name of the city was the Latin equivalent of the name of a mountain range in Wyoming for the exact same reason: Mamcium — Teton — breasts-shaped mountains.

He also told us a bunch of grandiose quotes about Manchester that betrayed how full of itself the city can be. There is quite a rivalry with Liverpool and to a lesser extent London. Much later in the tour, I asked if it’s true that Manchester is becoming a more affordable answer to London and Josh said that’s right and that one of the results is that he’s been priced out of downtown. He’s quite concerned about a new train link that will put London an hour away as that’s commuting distance.

One of our first stops was UMIST, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. I wish I could remember more than that because I know there was more, but my brain really is mush tonight.

We then learned a bit about Alan and the legend that the Apple logo originated with him (not true). There was also a plaque in the area saying that we were standing by an apple tree grown from a seed from one of Sir Isaac Newton’s apples, but there was not an apple tree to be seen.

Next, we went to the monument to Vimto, a drink I’d never heard of that was invented by a Quaker (I think) as an alternative to alcohol. It is apparently hugely popular in the Arab world.

Josh gave us a sample of the fizzy version of the drink, which was apparently a travesty. It smelled and tasted like cough syrup. Some Mancunians (residents of Manchester) on the tour said that the non-fizzy drink is nice diluted with hot water, but I don’t think it’d be to my taste.

We moved on to Orient house, which is the building with the scaffolding.

Josh told us how his friend Ben lived in this building in quite a grotty apartment that was very Manchester with its view to train arches and other things, but Ben was evicted with four weeks’ notice so that the building could be renovated and turned into luxury housing. I asked if Ben is homeless now. Nope. The story has a happy ending. Ben is living in a lovely new place that’s a bit more expensive. Why am I telling you this? Josh said Ben would get a kick out of seeing his story in my blog. 🙂

We moved on to the shores of the mighty Medlock River…

This is right by the building where Noel Gallagher of Oasis wrote the songs for “Definitely, Maybe.” Oh, that reminds me of something!

So Manchester was the first industrialised city in possibly the whole world, or at least in the UK. Its industry was textiles, primarily cotton. But the city went into decline in the early 20th century and industry pretty much ended after the 1940 Blitz. The city rather reinvented itself as an alternative music scene and was the home of that techno punk type music, with lots of raves and a  club scene. Totally not my thing, but it was interesting to see the contrast of this very classical looking city with its rather liberal attitudes. There’s quite a large gay scene here as well.

We walked along a canal that reminded me of Amsterdam.

To the heart of Manchester’s gay village. Josh told us how gay men would hang out at the Union Hotel and there were frequent raids while prostitutes hung out a few blocks away and were also frequently raided. They finally had the bright idea to hang out together and pretend to be a legitimate hetero couple when the police came knocking. It worked. LOL! But the owner was finally told that he couldn’t keep running his business that way and that something had to change. So he appended the word “New” to his establishment…

Manchester’s animal is the worker bee, which symbolises all that Manchester wants to be.

I love the pub names and Josh found it funny that we North Americans are so enchanted by this.

I am really distressed by how little I’m remembering. Sorry for the worst travel post ever. Josh’s tour deserves better!

This was a neat building in that every floor is in a different architectural style.

We went into Chinatown. The ratio of Chinese to non-Chinese here is the highest in the UK.

This was a neat building. It leads down to… a nuclear bunker. It was built during the Cold War for a whopping £4 million to house only 40 people. It was a classified and very top secret building that, really, was useless. There are tunnels leading out of it and British Telecom ran phone lines through them. A homeless person caused a fire down there that not only took out phone service in the area, but also the internet in part of Sweden. Josh is not sure how that happened but swore it’s true!

The city library.

The Midland Hotel. Hitler loved it and wanted it for Nazi headquarters after Germany won the war.

We took a break here as we’d been going for two whole hours that would have flown by had it not been so bloody cold and wet out. We stopped for a hot drink at a Cafe Nerro where I also splurged on a giant oatmeal raisin biscuit since I hadn’t realised the tour was so long and wasn’t going to make it to lunch. This is where I discovered my useless phone had dropped from 70% battery life to 9% despite having no apps open and being on Airplane Mode. I’m going to miss Siri, but I’m going to a better phone next… I had a Lightning cable on me, but no way to plug the phone in. Josh saved the day by offering me a wall charger! We were in the café just long enough to get my phone up to 52%, which got me home.

We continued on to Manchester Central, which is a convention centre, not a train station, and the site of the Peterloo Massacre. Please go read up on it, but the short of it was that a bunch of unarmed protesters for the reform of parliamentary representation were slaughtered in 1819.

This Hilton hotel is the tallest building in the area and howls when the wind blows.

We moved on to the Free Trade Hall, site of an important moment in the history of the suffragettes. It’s the only hall named after an idea rather than a person. Manchester was a bit late in getting parliamentary representation, so it was poorly supervised and taxed, allowing free trade and commerce to flourish.

Next door is the Royale Theatre, the oldest in the city.

Now, Manchester City Hall, which rather looks like Canada’s Parliament Buildings.

This is Albert Square and that’s Albert’s monument. Albert as in the consort of Queen Victoria, who did not attend the opening of the building. Her statue is somewhere else in the city and she apparently looks like Jabba the Hutt… which reminds me that except for that statue, there are no statues of women in Manchester! Within a few years, there will be one of a suffragette, though.

I correctly guess that the decoration at the top of the tower is a cotton ball.

Next we moved to Lincoln Square. What a good likeness of Abraham Lincoln this is! This statue represents Manchester’s link with the US during the US Civil War. Manchester was a procurer of slave cotton, but ultimately put an embargo on it and instead moved to non-slave, inferior cotton from the Middle East. This contributed to speeding up the collapse of the Confederate economy. This is in no way to say that Manchester brought about the end of the Civil War, but its actions did speak loudly.

We then went into the wonderfully warm Royal Exchange, which is now a theatre and café.

This board is where the stock prices were advertised. The numbers shown are from the last day of trading, which I believe was 1969.

I forgot to ask how the numbers got changed considering how high up this thing is, but I now see the railing, so I imagine there’s a catwalk behind it.

Right in the middle of the space is a theatre in the round for 755 people, with none of the seats being more than eight feet from the stage.

We finished our tour here, where we learned about the June 15th, 1996 IRA bombing. I learned that authorities got about a 90-minute warning that the bomb was going to go off and they found it, but it could not be diffused in time so they decided to let it explode. They evacuated about 75,000 to 80,000 people, which is an amazing feat. There were injuries and heaps of property damage and economic consequences, but no one was killed. This would be a watershed moment for a city in decline as the rebuilding efforts brought a new vitality to the city.

This is the corn exchange building.

The bomb detonated just about here.

I remember that bombing so clearly. It was the month that I graduated from high school and just weeks ahead of my last trip to Quebec City.

Thus ends Josh’s tour. One last time, do not judge it based on this post. 🙂

It was probably the weather, but Manchester didn’t make a huge impression on me. Museums are free, but I’m really museumed out and glad I have an excuse to stay home tomorrow.

After the tour, I headed back towards the Royal Exchange as I’d spotted a Barclay’s, where I was able to take out some more cash. You may wonder why I didn’t simply make a larger withdrawal yesterday and the short answer is it’s what I had in that account and I had to move money around to get more. 🙂

By this point, I was very wet, very cold, very tired, and getting grumpy, so it was time to find food and get home. I was disgusted by how many streets downtown did not have signage so my map was all but useless, plus it was disintegrating in the damp.

My original plan for the day, when I thought the tour was two hours long, was to have a cream tea after and then get a takeaway later for dinner. But the tour had run way over and it was three by the time we were done (four hours!). So it was time for a proper meal. I decided to splurge and get a full tea even if I knew that would be around £20. I’d done my research for the cream tea and wanted to try the Richmond Tea Rooms, which were conveniently right by Sackville Gardens and on the way to my bus.

I passed this mural on the way, which had a much better likeness of Alan.

I found the Richmond Tea Rooms without any trouble. They have an Alice-in-Wonderland over the top theme. Very cute! As expected, a full tea was over £20, but they had a “Hatter’s” tea for just £10.50 with sandwiches, a scone, and a pot of tea! I knew that would be plenty.

Service was super slow and I rather regretted going when I was tired, grumpy, and starting to get a headache, but I’m glad I stuck it out. The server asked if I had any dietary restrictions and offered to sub tomato and cheese for egg salad when I told her. This is what they brought me:

I had three small sandwiches with a bruschetta-type thing and also an onion and bell pepper tart that I was told had no egg in it, just cheese. SO good! The sandwiches were chicken, ham and butter, and tomato and cheese. Dessert was a huge raisin scone with clotted cream and jam. For tea, I picked their house blend. This was definitely plenty. It’s now four hours later and I’m only just starting to get peckish.

The Richmond Tea Rooms really put on a nice tea. The food was at least as good as at the Wolseley in London, but, of course, I didn’t have the same level of service.

It was past four and pitch dark when I got out of there. I went back to the area where I got off my bus only to see one with my number at a bus stop on the correct side of the way to head home. I didn’t bother rushing to it since I knew another would come along quickly. Sure enough, by the time I’d made my way to the bus stop at a leisurely pace that respected the traffic signals, another one was pulling up. It was very full, so I went upstairs, my first time riding in the top level of a double decker since Edinburgh!

Unlike in most other cities with bus services, Manchester’s buses don’t announce the stops, so I had to keep an eye out to make sure I didn’t get taken for a ride. I ended up missing my stop, but the next one wasn’t much further and I would have ended up walking the same amount anyway. I popped into Tesco to get something light for dinner, settling on some Pot Noodles that would just need water from the kettle and a huge salad.

Weather aside, it was a good day in Manchester. I’m glad I picked the walking tour as my only activity here as it gave me a good idea of what the city is all about.

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An Amazing Couple of Weeks in Amsterdam

My job yesterday wound up taking a lot longer than I expected, so that combined with a late start meant I never did get out in the afternoon. Frankly, I was overdue for a pyjama day! It was a similar thing today, where I just couldn’t stand the thought of facing the crowds downtown. I decided to focus on preparing the house for my hosts, enjoying final cuddles with my charges, and beginning the packing process.

I did go for a walk around my neighbourhood, between rain showers. I could definitely live here. You get a lot of the same conveniences as downtown, but without the crowds, similar to the neighbourhood I lived in in London. I can understand why my hosts chose this location when they had the opportunity to live in a canal house for a time.

Since I’m trying to set the kitchen to rights, I didn’t want to cook today and so I looked for a nice lunch in the area. After much Googling, I realised that I wanted Mexican-y flavours. I passed a burrito shop on my way to the Rembrandt House and regretted not trying it out. Ever the optimist, I did a search for Mexican food in my neighbourhood, certain that my only options were the two I knew about and which are very expensive. Well, to my delight, the restaurant near Rembrandtplein, Salsa Shop, has recently opened a restaurant a kilometre from my flat! So that was my lunch decision made.

Well, I ended up having the absolute best Tex-Mex of my life in Amsterdam of all places. My burrito was made fresh to order with rice, black beans, seasoned chicken, spicy sweet corn, “pico de gallo”, cheese, lettuce, and sour cream. I then had a pick of a wide range of salsas to suit all palates and I went with their second spiciest, smokey pineapple. I splurged and added some chunky guacamole with homemade tortilla chips and a fresh Mexican-style limonada. Add in all the Cholula hot sauce I could ever want and I was in paradise. It was actually quite cheap by Amsterdam standards since my meal cost €14 (20CAD) and I had enough leftovers for dinner!

It’s been an amazing stay in Amsterdam, but I’m ready to move on. There is no way I could keep up this pace for much longer and work is about to pick up anyway. I’ll be in Manchester two full days and only plan for one of those to be a touristy day. Then, on to Hebden Bridge on Sunday and then to my sit on Monday, where I’ll be for a solid month. Once again, I have to say that I am so inordinately grateful to have had a chance to truly live in Amsterdam for two whole weeks and to have gotten to know my way around part of it. I really hope to be back one day!