Wasn't that long ago, but still...
I remember my first day, running around Malas... it took me months before I finally stopped running away from skittering hoppers, I was positive they were going to attack me.
I was a total hoarder in my early days, I'd pick up everything I saw. Consequently, my first death was to a trapped box in Luna. I walked around the bank sitters for ages waiting for someone to res me (I'd seen hubby's grey screen enough to know that that was what one did...) only I had no idea about showing as a ghost, or wandering healers. I must have stood there for ten minutes before a necro ran up and saw me. Don't think I logged on for a week after that!
There have been things that have made me enormously proud to be an Oceanian... like when half the shard turned out to do Twaulo of the Glade (epic, epic chaos), or the Void Shadow (which, granted, had to be "turned down" before we had a hope in hell of killing). If I remember correctly, after a weekend of hard slog we got the Moonglow Zoo up to tier 8, but boy was I sick of the sight of drakes by then! I still look back with great fondness at the Inu event arc... running home from work and catching up on three or four pages of the spoiler thread here on Stratics, then racing out to find where the nasty ophidies were that day and finding Oce folks already fighting the hoarde.
But as others have said, it really is the people. Being made first an emissary then GM of the guild I loved by the GM who I still keep in touch with (and miss dearly! Come back, Lihan! Pandas? Really? C'mon man, gargoyles are so much cooler!). Sitting around gossiping and losing all my money at the Fox Emporium Casino, or cheering on the bloodshed at Thunderdome... those were the days.
*Raises a glass* And many more.