Vlad worked at the Mandarin Oriental hotel for the first three months in DC. During his tenure there, he designed the Sakura Pink Empress Afternoon Tea, also cherry-blossom-themed. He could secure only four tickets for Sunday, so he, Anna, Nadia, and I went.
I think that that’s one of the cases when “a picture’s worth a thousand words,” so I am going to show the tea menu (each of us selected their own tea, and Nadia got a kid version of the menu, and she also had a sparkling juice).
The moment Vlad appeared, all the associates started to stop by and hug him, asking how he was doing and telling him how much they missed him. He had to leave a little bit earlier, and then Anna and Nadia also realized that they were almost late to meet Anna’s friends, and I said I would take care of the check.
Next, I could not leave for another thirty minutes: people kept stopping by and telling me how awesome Vlad was, how responsible he was, and that it was unbelievable that he was so young and so well organized!
One of the associates showed me a picture from Vlad’s last day in Mandarin, and I asked her to send it to me.
Hettie's Reflections 