2018 in review

Friends, I have to admit that my 2019 started on the toilet. 🥳

I’m still laughing about it over here. 

You see, we had friends over for dinner, and we were in the middle of a very spirited game of « Cards against Humanity » when I all of the sudden realized it was nearly midnight.  So I popped open a new bottle of champagne, topped up everyone’s glasses and then for some reason, decided I had enough time to go pee before the clock struck midnight.  So that’s where I was when I heard « Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one....Happy New Year! ». And then immediately followed by C « Sam, where are you?? ».  Poor guy got his New Year bisou a minute too late. 

Hopefully this is not a sign of the year to come. ;)

Looking back though, 2018 was a bit of a mixed bag. I wouldn’t say it was a bad year, but the first half was certainly mired with a lot of work-related stress and self-doubt.  But it also included a lot of really cool work trips to Brazil, Egypt, UK, Portugal, US, Egypt again, Monaco, Egypt a third time, Jordan, China, the UK again and the Netherlands. 

And then I started my new job and made several more trips to the UK and Hungary, and 5 more trips to the US. I also squeezed in a quick trip to Japan, which made up for my trip (and my poor first-class ticket!) that I had to cancel in September due to the typhoon in Kyoto. 

I had a big chat with my new boss right before Christmas about my objectives for 2019, and right now, I’m to focus on the US and Japan, and see if I can manage to build any business in France in my ‘free time’.  Which should be exciting, right?  Who wouldn’t want to travel regularly to the US and Japan?  But I can already tell I’m starting to feel a bit itchy about no longer visiting ‘new’ places...and C wants to save all of his vacation for his land (which I still need to write about!), so I haven’t had any luck convincing him to take any personal trips with me. 

I guess that it’s natural that this time of year comes with a lot of reflection as one year closes and another begins, and particularly this year, as I still don’t really know what I want to do with my life - but the only thing I do know is that travel will always be a part of it.