All the items I have left from America — Samuel German

Nowadays, being a nomad is more popular than ever. Digital nomads are especially popular. Some come and go, but some who go to far away lands, may never return home again. It’s interesting to see what minimalist nomads keep. What heirlooms, devices and even clothes that remain after several years.

Gathered here, are all the items I have that I have kept, since leaving the US in August 2014.

I am no different. I left the US in August of 2014. New York City was my last stop. I sat on the grass with a guy named John. We took the subway to the airport and soon, I would never seen America again. Here on the bed are all the items I could find, that I still have. In the blog today, I would like to try to show and tell about everything that still remains. The items will be in no particular order. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

A Toshiba external harddrive. It is 1.5 TB and I bought it in 2012, it still works.

This is an external hard drive that I bought during a summer camp in 2012. I had a 500 GB hard drive that was 5 times it size, yet had 1/3 less capacity. The drive still works, and is 8 years old now. I try not to keep anything important on it, that isn’t backed up somewhere else to be safe.

The passport i had when I left in 2014. It is no longer valid.

Here’s my first passport. It is no longer valid. They punch holes in passports when you get a new one. If they hadn’t done that, then I would have had two passports for 6 months.

Take a look at all the photos, aren’t they beautiful? I feel like I look the youngest in the 2019 visa. What do you think?

Here is a folder, from my Theatre UAF days. But, what’s inside?

Inside the binder there are different portfolios and other documents. Also UAF alumni regalia.

A samsung USB microphone that is now 10 years old.

This is the microphone I used to record the audio for my undergraduate film thesis called Swede Dreams. It was a 9 minute 2-d animation. Nowadays I use this for online classes and recording other things I need to record. It still works well after 10 years of use.

This was the first mp3 player I ever bought. I still have it for some reason. I bought it back in 2012, when I bought an Iphone 2. The mp3 player came with it for free. I’m sure they were just trying to get rid of them.

This is a jaw harp that I bought at a folk music festival. It was in Richmond VA inside of a civil war building. I can make some notes with it, but don’t really know how to play any songs.

These four items, came mostly from America. The lighter, I bought while in Norway. I’ve used it mostly as a bottle cap opener as you can see by the bottom, that looks like its been chewed on. The tick scoop I got while working at a summer camp and I put it to good use. I had 38 ticks that summer. I still have it just in case. I can almost feel them crawling on me now!

The green knife my brother bought me as a gift with my name written on it. The black knife I got in a package of 5 knives from my father. Its been used for many things, including slashing someone’s tires. Nope, I didn’t do it. A friend asked to borrow it and I found out what it was used for later. :/

Sea shells collected from the time I was a kid and up to when I was 24 years old. Mostly collected from Myrtle Beach South Carolina and the shores of Northern Norway. (Tomma island and Nesna). Looks like some of them are broken. #sadface.

Three hats from America. The Redskins hat is obvious, I’m a Redskins fan. The knitted hat was made by my great grandmother from Norway. I’m not sure when it was knitted, but I like to tell people “1925”. The last hat was a hat I bought in Alaska, and I get to use sometimes when its cold.

Some of these currencies were collected after I left America, but most of them were collected before I left. Here there are currencies from Germany before the EU, America, Norway, Turkey, Thailand, Poland, Hungary, Canada and Brazil.

This is a wolf’s head. Ok it’s the wolf’s head’s skin. One year at UAF there was an art class that was giving away different animal skins. One of my Finnish friends named Minerva got a full bear’s skin, and I got this wolf head’s skin. I’ve got an idea of creating a hat with it or maybe a glove, but then I would need a second one.

My mother is a studier of dead people. Ok, she’s a genealogist. She gave me this copy of her side of the family and their records. According to this, our first white relative was born in the US in 1693. There are some Polish tongue twister names such as: “Zdziarski” and “Wyszk”

A knife I made that started out as a steel 440 block.

This knife took 50 hours to make. It was the second knife I made in a knife making course at UAF. This is a curved blade and has a brass finger guard and a plaster handle. The material it rests on is a piece of the t-shirt I used while making both the knives. It was an old t-shirt that had “You are just jealous because the voices speak to me” written on it.

Here are some more angles, looking at the blade.

These are bracelets from Traena Festival. I went there in 2009 and 2010. This is a music festival on an island in Northern Norway and of course the island is called “Traena”. Both years I went there were blast. It is mostly drinking and talking, but once in awhile you go down to the concert area and listen to music. There is also a concert in a cave and mountain climbing expeditions.

From left to right: high school class ring, Thor’s hammer, key chain, and UAF alumni pin. The Thor’s hammer was a replacement for a Thor’s hammer given to me by a woman I met in a German class. It was supposedly blessed to soothe anger, kind of ironic if you think about it.

Friendship bracelets from a camp I worked at in West Virginia.

Now there was a time when I could list the people who gave me these bracelets. Sadly, I can’t remember now. But I do know two of them were given to me by Martina (Friend from Slovakia) and Roman (Friend from the Czech Republic). I think Lukasz (also from Czech Republic) gave me one too.

Here are ribbons and rank insignias from a military youth group I was in called Civil Air Patrol (CAP). I was in there for two and a half years. I became the first sergeant of my squadron and reached Chief Master Sergeant rank. I also went to two encampments and logged 240 hours of community service.

Photos I used to keep in my wallet. Now they rest in my heirloom bag. Check below for a look at the individual photos.

Senior prom photo with my date named Christian.

North Carolina encampment ball photo with my date named Margaret. This was in the summer of 2000 and was my second of two encampments that summer.

A photo of my great grand parents. The man is of Irish, French, Powhatan and Cherokee descent. The woman is of Scottish descent. This is according to genealogy records.

My brother named Ted and his dog named Shiloh.

Friends from early childhood. The man leaning on the airplane is named Hamilton and was my friend in CAP. The girl in the other two photos is named Rachel and was my pen-pal from 12-15. She was from Kalamazoo Michigan.

My grandparents on my father’s side. The man named Kenneth is of Norwegian and Danish descent. The woman named Charlotte is a huge mix of Dutch, German, Swedish, Welsh, Irish, Scottish and English.

This interesting Norwegian Christmas ornament that I have kept for 8 years has a cool story to it. I was visiting Norway and at my Norwegian relatives farm. We went to one of his friend’s for Christmas eve. They had a dinner and after the dinner we opened presents. One of the presents had instructions written in English but there were some errors. We took turns seeing how many mistakes we could find. I ended up finding 9 and so they let me have one of their ornaments as a reward.

Stuffed animals I kept from my childhood.

These stuffed animals might be older than some people reading. The white dog on the right is 29 years old and the blue dog on the left is 23. I loved the 101 dalmations story as a kid so I got the white puppy who is a character from the movie named “Penny”. She’s got a cracked eye now, but besides that doesn’t look bad. The funky dog on the left is named “Kipp”. He needs some eye and nose work. Besides that he is still pretty fluffy.

I used to work for a cutlery company called cutco. I had a sample kit that included these knives and scissors. As an option, you could buy your own sample kit, so I did. I have now had these for 7 years, haven’t sharpened them and they are still sharp. The scissors come apart for easy cleaning and they are pretty strong, as you can cut through pennies with them. The amazing trick only works if the penny is made of copper though. (Nowadays a lot of pennies are no longer made of copper)

Ok, here is the last photo. The only clothes I have left from America. A pair of “And1” shorts and a basic T-shirt. My style has changed over the years being abroad and some clothes have also worn out.

Well, I hope you enjoyed all of these photos and stories. If you made it here, I’d also like to thank you for reading everything or at least looking at the pictures. Go ahead and sign up if you would like to be emailed when new blogs are posted below:

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