Twenty-ten, two thousand and ten or "Naught-ten"

As is customary at the beginning of every new year, I've been looking back and asking myself "Where did 2010 go?". At first I dismissed it as just another year that had gone by in-discernibly, but then I began looking back at my photos from last year. Here's a quick recap and some of the best photos I came across.

The album labelled "January to May" brought back to memory the Stereophonics gig in Sheffield. After arriving at the arena and parking the car I pulled my phone out of my pocket to discover 37 missed calls and 5 text messages from Al. He'd come on the train from Lincoln...and forgotten his ticket. All I can remember about the rest of the night is having Subway, getting Al a ticket from a tout and then sleeping on Al's floor in Lincoln after a good show.

In amongst the other photos I also found a picture of a homosexual man:













June signalled the start of a brilliant summer. Halloumi on the barbecue, sun, (a disappointing) world cup and Rob falling over.











July and August were probably the highlight of 2010 for me. Obviously the biggest highlight was when the British Virgin Islands won the world cup (On the XBOX). Other than that there were more barbecues, sun and a trip from Istanbul to London in there somewhere. The Topdeck experience was brilliant, I loved the people, the places and even spooning with Al when the tent got particularly cold in Prague. I also got to know a certain Yank very well, something I'm really happy about. I could upload thousands of photos which I'd class as my favourites, but instead I'll just upload this one:













After such a great summer I finally began my placement here, in Bremen. All in all I'm enjoying it. There are things that I miss from home, but also things that I'll miss about Germany when I leave. Bremen's a great city and I've managed to see a lot of the country while I've been here too.

This picture (no matter how stereotypical) shows exactly why I love this country:









Here's to another great year in 2011!

A Reintroduction to Blogging

I just logged into my Blogger account for the first time in what seems like forever.
My decision to revisit 2009 was prompted partly by the recent surge in “bloggerism” by a couple of friends of mine and partly by curiosity. You see as old age sets in (21 now), my memories are becoming increasingly harder to put dates on, scrap that, it’s hard to put years on most things now. I remember I finished school in 2006 and right now it’s 2011… isn’t it?

Anyway, after reading a few previous blogs, and also a few drafts that I didn’t publish, I realised that I should start committing a few more memories to paper (or to the internet at least). For instance, I’d totally forgotten about the black puma t-shirt that I lost two years ago, now that’s something I’ll want to tell the grandkids about, just in case they find it. I realise I’ll probably be way too fat by then but it’d still be nice to see it again!

Blogs, I’ve realised, are a brilliant way to preserve those memories, which at the time may feel totally mundane and unimportant, but in the future may bring a smile to your wrinkly, old, artery-clogged, heart attack having face. For instance, this great example of family life from 2009 that I found unpublished in my drafts,

“I haven't left the house for 3 days and the full family's ill. It's been horrible. Snot, sick and ear goop eveywhere.”

How can anyone say that that’s not precious?

After looking back over my previous blogs I decided that I should probably fill in the gaps (or at least plaster over the cracks)… I really have grown up a bit, 2 years ago those brackets would have contained a joke about the word gap. Oh my days.
It’d be unfair to only now start waxing lyrical about 2010, already half way down the page. Future Sam would hate me for that. Therefore I’ll be writing a blog over the next few days with all the juicy details, or at least the details I can remember. Something about a tent with Al B?