For various reasons, my trip to Europe was postponed several times in 2017. But finally, I went there in November – December, alone, as Kyle couldn’t join this time. It was my second time visiting this continent. In total, I went to 15 cities in 12 countries, including one city and country in West Asia/ Middle East.

The long journey began with a visit to Bangkok, Thailand for 4 days then back to Hanoi for several days. On Monday morning, I flew to Kuala Lumpur to catch the next flight to Amsterdam with Qatar Airways. The airlines had a transit of 19 hours at Qatar’s capital city, Doha, so I spent the night in this modern city; thus, Doha became the first new country of my year-end trip.

The next day I arrived in Amsterdam. It was my second visit there (I had already visited almost all of the attractions in and around Amsterdam last year), so I used my time to rest as I had gotten a cough and cold in Kuala Lumpur.

Here is a list of the European cities and countries I visited on my end of 2017 trip:

1. Doha, Qatar
2. Amsterdam, the Netherlands
3. Bruges, Belgium
4. Brussels, Belgium
5. Cologne, Germany
6. Strasbourg, France
7. Zurich, Switzerland
8. Milan, Italy
9. Florence, Italy
10. Venice, Italy
11. Slovenia
12. Vienna, Austria
13. Bratislava, Slovakia
14. Budapest, Hungary
15. Prague, Czech Republic

To get home, I rode the bus from Prague back to Amsterdam. It took 14 hours to go there.. the longest trip I’ve ever done with a bus! But the journey didn’t stop in Amsterdam as I had to catch the next flight to Kuala Lumpur. When I arrived in KL the next day in an exhausted condition, I still had to fly to Ho Chi Minh City, and then again to Phu Quoc island (back in Vietnam) to finish the last trip of 2017 with Kyle.

It took some time/days to lift my spirit and change my mood from a lazy, “enjoy the holiday” mindset to working mood. But fortunately, I managed to do it, and here are the articles that I wrote and managed to get published in December 2017:

What about the details of my trip? The preparations, transportation, the stories, the places, and, more interesting, the people I’ve met in Europe? Well, I am not going to write it all here, but later… once I have finished my main job, as it resumes being my first concern now that I’ve stepped my feet back in Asia.