2002 B.C.

It’s 2010. It’s the age of blogging and social media and iPhones and status updates. It’s hard to believe that just 10 years ago, not everyone had a blog, not everyone had a digital camera or even a cell phone. It boggles my mind. There was life before Google. There were television commercials. People communicated face to face!

And oh, wasn’t it nice?

A few weeks ago I had a moment of radical nostalgia. I climbed up in the attic and pulled down a box I hadn’t opened in several years. And spent hours looking through pictures and mementos from the fall semester I spent abroad in 2002. Sadly, that was in THOSE days – the ones before blogging and digital photography. I have often thought how unfortunate it is that I don’t have an online, written record of that semester like I would if I went now. Let’s be honest, you poor people would be subjected to (likely) a daily dose of rambling from a 19 year old college kid on a 3-month trek through Western Europe littered with backpacking hostels, Eurorail passes, and homesickness. It would surely be overload. But oh – I wish I had those words to go back and read now.

And as I looked through the photos I hadn’t seen in far too long, I realized that the blogging, Shutterfly-ing, social-media-obsessed Sarah of 2010 just couldn’t bear to put all those photos back in the box and shut the lid for another couple years. I had to do something.

So I did. I found Digmypics.com. I put all my negatives (remember those?) in a box and shipped them off. They digitized all of my photos – at breakneck speed no less – and now you get to enjoy them with me.

Can you imagine if these beauties had remained boxed up forever?

Venice. Everything travels by water - taxis, police, business people. That vehicle in the water is a water bus - public transportation.

That's me. Feeding the pigeons in St. Mark's Square in Venice.

 
Left: In the Cinque Terre (Five Lands), on the Italian Riviera. Right: At the Leaning Tower in Pisa. It rained ALL DAY, but we climbed every slippery step all the way to the top.  

I took 16 rolls of film in one semester. That’s 400 photos. Only 400. I can take that many in a single weekend now, with my digital camera. Can you imagine how many photos I’d have taken if I had limitless digital memory and didn’t have to worry about developing each roll? If only I’d been able to just snap away at different angles like I do now? Taking multiple shots of details and landscapes and people and - just everything.

Yachts in the Monaco Marina.

Playing in the Mediterranean Sea. Italy.

At the Colosseum in Rome.  
 

These pictures are like finding 20 bucks in the pocket of your winter coat when you put it on for the first time since last season. Like buried treasure. I won't even tell you how much time I've spent looking through them in the last few weeks and thinking about the ETERNITY that has passed since I returned from this trip. It was a lifetime ago. 

Enjoying a Guinness on the top level of the factory, overlooking Dublin.

My favorite bridge in Europe. The Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge) in Florence. It's lined with little jewelry stores and it's just adorable.

The Alps. Switzerland. 

 

Ok, I DID tell you I have 400 pictures, right? I promise I'll stop soon.

 

 
These are some of my favorite. We took photos of "Twinkie Man" everywhere we went so that Jenni (my friend and travel partner) could send them back to an elementary school class in her hometown - it was helping the kids learn about the places we went. Above: Twinkie Man posing for a (prohibited) photo with Michelangelo's David in Florence, and with Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Below: Twinkie Man with remains of the Berlin Wall.

These photos make me giddy. Dizzy with excitement for my next adventure. Whatever that might be. 

Comments

[Jennifer H-F]

These photographs are gorgeous! I have a similar treasure trove of photos from when I was 17 or 18 on my first trip to England. I may have to digitize them. You are an inspiration!

[Jenni]

Today, I officially begin saving for our 10 year reunion tour. May just consist of a few stops along our way but it will be awesome!!! (and I'll have to find Twinkie man...)

[Nancy Bunch]

The Twinkie Man on the Berlin Wall is a brilliant photo. LOVE it.