The Museum Times in Retrospect – Happy 2 Years!

Today I wish to thank Rome. Nearly two years ago on the 28^th of December 2012 I left my home of South Africa for the museums, arts and culture of Italy. As a result of this life-changing move I created this blog filled with many museum/arts/culture stories of which I’m proud. If it wasn’t for living abroad my blog probably wouldn’t have amounted to much. Travel inspiration was necessary!

At the beginning of 2012, even prior to having moved to Europe I began blogging under my name at www.elizabethjoss.com. It was an exciting time as I had entered the online marketing world and was discovering all the fantastic things travel bloggers were doing to market their blogs and engage their audiences. I was utterly moved and impressed.

While living in Rome I was equally blown away. Each and every night I ventured into the city to discover a new museum and just to get lost in the hub bub of it all. I was in my element and it was a dream come true.

At the time I was filled with an immense sense of gratitude and I wanted to share this with everyone I knew. I wanted to tell the world that anything is possible if you just believe it and work hard towards it – and blogging was a way of making my gratitude tangible.

However, my dream was quite idealistic at the time and I quickly realised that things don’t always go according to plan. Such is life! Five months into living in Europe my remote work fell apart. I had to find another job. And quickly too.

My work brought me to The Hague, the Netherlands where I now live. I am settled here and never imagined my life to lead here but it has. To be honest, I never knew much about The Hague prior to moving here. Today I cannot imagine living elsewhere. It is very beautiful here and this is my home base now. Schiphol is close by and from there I have access to the whole of Europe and its also a direct flight away from Cape Town, my home. This is the heart of it all.

And so, The Museum Times was born at the start of 2014 but it was in the making since 2012 in the form of  www.elizabethjoss.com – all travel posts have since been transferred to The Museum Times. Why? Because early in 2014 I realised that my blog deserved its own niche – my own name simply wouldn’t do as it didn’t quite capture what I was writing about. So I changed it and The Museum Times began to come into its own.

 

So here it is, my journey as a blogger in sum. Today I’m celebrating a bit. Life is a bit odd, it throws you curveballs along the way but it’s how you stand up and fight to get it right that counts. Today I’m grateful for Rome. I’m grateful for home. I’m grateful for all the arts and culture I can expose myself to. I’m grateful having my two hands to write and my mind to think up and create my blog stories. There is a mild storm outside today in The Hague but life is good. Here’s to many more years of travel blogging, writing and exploring the world. And although there’s no real birthday date, the month of December 2012 kind of marks it all – my transition to a whole new world of travel. So Happy 2nd Birthday to The Museum Times and to the adventure that is life!