The One About 10 Years Going By …

10 years ago today I landed at Schiphol Airport on a cold, rainy Wednesday morning. I’d left Australia 2 days earlier to reunite with Marius in the Netherlands, and become a resident of the Netherlands.

I started this blog as a way to share stories with family and friends back in Australia, and also just talk about the challenges of starting again in a new country. It really wasn’t about anything else – literally a way to spin a couple of stories based on my own unique sense of humour, and entertain my friends and family.

But life has a funny way of doing things, and the best-laid plans can take a different turn.

My blog hasn’t really had a lot of action in the past 4 years, and I own that. Life got in the way of plans. But I wouldn’t say that my blog hasn’t had a part in the past 4 years. In fact, I think it’s the inspiration for the direction my life took.

One blog post changed my life, and showed me a new direction. From that blog post came the inspiration for starting a charity, and also nurturing my own writing career. It changed a lot of my perspectives and made me realise that I needed to do something positive.

So my blog isn’t going anywhere. I will update it with things that have happened to me in the past little while (for example, did you know I became Dutch?). It will just be sporadically, but it will always be the same funny outlook on life in the Netherlands as an Aussie. I don’t think you’ll ever take that from me.

For updates on my professional life, please check out either @stephanieernstwriter on Facebook and Instagram, and also my website at stephanieernst.nl. Or stick around here. There’s going to be some more updates!