I’ve finally got through all the emails, uploaded all my holiday snaps and written up enough of my holidays to finally properly retrospect on the year that was 2007. It’s been a busy one and it looks a bit like this.

In terms of travel…
I ended up with plenty to the US for some reason, hitting Philadelphia, New York City, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.

The European trips started with a weekend in Paris, followed by an ad hoc whiskey drinking holiday in Scotland covering Aberdeen, Dufftown (in Speyside) and finally Edinburgh. Ben organised for eight of us to go to a wonderful skiing week in Andorra. The weekend after that I returned to Edinburgh to really get a good feel for the city.

I ended up in Italy for a work conference visiting Milan, Bergamo and the Como area only to return to Italy shortly after to its Sardinian island, Alghero for a weekend with Kath.

My final “European” trip actually ended up in Bath (of all places) for the bank holiday weekend.

I started my time in India (only eight months later than originally planned) and I’ve managed to fit in quite a lot of travel since being here. I’ve managed to visit Mysore, Kochi, Savandurga, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, Mahabalipuram and Kolkata. I also managed to visit a number of India’s famous hill stations including the Queen of them, Ooty, and a couple very close to Pune, Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani. Most recently, I spent the Christmas and New Year period on a secluded island in the Andaman Islands.

In terms of entertainment…
Things ended up pretty quiet this year for concerts and the small number of people I did see included The Feeling, Bloc Party, The Editors and Keane.

I also attended my first two British/European music festivals – Oxegen held at the Punchtown Racecourse just outside Dublin and then Bestival, on the Isle of Wight. Most memorable artists from Oxegen included the ever gushing Snow Patrol, the energetic Calvin Harris and the stunning light and sound extravaganza that is Muse. The Chemical Brothers were easily the musical highlight of Bestival.

Musicals and theatre shows this year included The Colour Purple whilst I was still in New York, a disappointingly droll Porgy and Bess, a bright and energetic Lion King, and a very funny show called Boeing, Boeing. The highlight was the marathon yet very succinct Lord of the Rings stage show.

Other random things…
I moved for the second time since living in London to Farringdon, very close to Smithfields, Fabric and Turnmills. Fortunately it’s also just down the street of the Scotch Malt Whiskey Society that I became a member of and only a twenty minute walk to Old Street where I started tumbling classes.

I trialled vegetarianism for an entire month after coming back from the US, leading to learning more about the whole vegan, vegetarian and pescetarian lifestyles people live.

I barracked for Australia while I watched them lose against Denmark in a disappointing football match near White City.

I had a go at Bobsledding, of all places, in Bath(!) where they have a training site for the British team.

I also split out my life blog from my work blog at last as the content really started diverging and work people weren’t that interested in all the things I got up to, and my friends probably aren’t that concerned about my rants about onboarding and various coaching and development things I do. I’ll be sure to write up a work retrospective on the other blog too if you are interested.

I finished the year off by finishing my PADI open water diving qualification on New Year’s Eve in the Andaman Islands.