at that time there were not so many places to choose among, since it was quite a new area. when birgit and i returned some 10 years later, we could hardly recognize the surroundings.

How would the previous sentence be correctly capitalized?
At that time there were not so many places to choose among, since it was quite a new area. When Birgit and I returned some 10 years later, we could hardly recognize the surroundings.