Summer Of '09

Oh when I look back now

This summer seemed to last forever

And if I had the choice

Yeah, I'd always wanna be there

Those were the best days of my life

(Bryan Adams - Summer Of '69)

Sausalito, CA.

June 2009.

It's been three years since I spent the months of June and July driving around the American West... Sausalito was one of the highlights. I loved that place... it's such a fascinating town.

My best friend and I have been thinking about going on a road trip around Canada (and possibly the United States too) next summer. I can't wait... by that time, it's going to have been ten years since I visited Alberta and British Columbia... 

I've got three long days of work coming up: seven and a half hours on Friday, eight and a half on Saturday, and another eight hours on Sunday. That's the only thing I don't like about my job - that I don't work Monday through Friday so I can have the weekends off.

Since I'm not going on a road trip this year, I might come home for a week to visit friends and family, probably in August or September. Until my friend Ollie crashed at my place last week, I felt at home in Hamburg and didn't miss London at all. Today was my day off from work, and while Ollie's been out of the house, I had time to think... and I realised how much I miss speaking English, how much I miss having a pint at the local pub (having a pint at one of the Irish pubs in Hamburg just isn't the same), I even miss having a fake fireplace in my bedroom... and right now... right now I'd love to get a veggie burger at Nando's. 


Speaking of travel, check out these posters from the golden age of travel...

Have a nice evening.


- Dom

Darkness On The Edge Of Town

Volvo Amazon.
Hamburg, Germany.

July 2012.

Tonight I'll be on that hill 'cause I can't stop

I'll be on that hill with everything I got

Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost

I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost

For wanting things that can only be found

In the darkness on the edge of town

(Bruce Springsteen - Darkness On The Edge Of Town)

Wish You Were Here

So, so you think you can tell

Heaven from hell,

Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field

From a cold steel rail?

A smile from a veil?

Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you to trade

Your heroes for ghosts?

Hot ashes for trees?

Hot air for a cool breeze?

Cold comfort for change?

And did you exchange

A walk-on part in the war

For a lead role in the cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here...

(Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here)

A question of perspective...

Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, CA.

June 2009.

I'm done apartment hunting - I've spent a lot of time over the past few weeks viewing flats around Hamburg, but I didn't get any of the ones I liked. Instead I decided to renew the contract for the place I've been living in since July 2011 for another year.

For the next few months, my friend Ollie, who used to play with me on my school's football team and who has come to Hamburg for half a year of work experience, will be staying at my place. We've already been out last Saturday and he loves the city, because it's much cheaper to go out all night in Hamburg than to spend just a few hours in a club in London. 

The weather has been awesome for the last couple of days as well, so I hope it'll stay this way and I'll be able to take new pictures on my next day off.

I'm off to work now... 

Have a good day!

- Dom

Thunder Road

With a chance to make it good somehow

Hey what else can we do now

Except roll down the window

And let the wind blow back your hair

(Bruce Springsteen - Thunder Road)

Two highways in Arizona.

June 2009.

Happy 4th of July to all my American friends, and to everyone else out there who is a follower of this blog - have a nice day wherever you may be.

- Dom

Ripple

There is a road, no simple highway 

Between the dawn and the dark of night

And if you go no one may follow

That path is for your steps alone

(Grateful Dead - Ripple)

There's a land beyond the river

That we call the sweet forever

(Harper Lee - To Kill A Mockingbird)

Ringo.

Two photographs taken on 35mm film in 2003 or 2004.

Digital pictures taken in 2010

and 2011, respectively.

A digital photograph and another

picture taken on 35mm film, 2012.

It was not so long ago that I thought that my dog, Ringo, would be around for a few more years to come, and hoped that he would pass away, peacefully, in his sleep… not leaving me with the choice to make that I had to make now - twelve years, one month, and fifteen days after Ringo was born…

In bold defiance of the many hot summers and cold winters that had passed in his lifetime, Ringo remained young at heart to the very end and continued to bring joy to my life… the youthful desires of his mind at times exceeding the physical realities of his age… running through the fields, chasing his green rubber ball, carrying his cuddly toys around the garden as if they were his own puppies…

On a routine check-up half a year ago, the vet diagnosed Ringo with a tumour, which, by the time it was discovered, had grown too big inside his nose to remove. Despite the fact that with every week that passed by, he’d breathe harder, he never gave up on being alive, right until that sad day when he was too weak to get up, which was when I had to have him put down and looked into his eyes for one last time.

It’s on occasions like this that sometimes I wish I could just believe in the hereafter, like so many other people do… a world beyond this one, a place where he’d be allowed to forever run through fields and jump across creeks and chase that rubber ball… free of all our earthly bonds, forever young and wild at heart. But I can’t…

Nevertheless, his memory will always remain… his dark brown eyes, his fur, the way he’d always reach out for me with one paw when I’d sit close to him. Time heals all wounds, so they say… but I’ll be working on this one for a long time.

And when your sorrow is comforted

(time soothes all sorrows)

you will be content that you have known me.

You will always be my friend.

(Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

I will miss you forever, my dear friend, and I will think of you – every day – for the rest of my life.