Happy 3rd Blog Birthday!

Okay, okay, so technically Alice's Antics birthday was a week ago for you, but at the time of writing this, it is officially 3 years since this little slice of internet pie was born. The tastiest slice, in my opinion. 

Three years isn't a particularly long time depending on how you look at it. 36 months, 156 weeks, 1095 days. And yet, the last three years for me have been some of the most self defining and, quite honestly, life changing, of the entire 21 years I've been plodding around. I think I accidentally created a blog at the most perfect time, because it's encaptured everything along the way. 

When I started Alice's Antics, I was a freshly turned 18 year old embarking on a gap yarrrrh, darling. Nobody I knew wrote a blog, people didn't 'get' the whole blogging thing, friends would laugh at it and my parents didn't attempt to understand it. Blogging and vlogging has absolutely blown up and I know I wasn't remotely part of the beginning of blogging, but in the time I've been writing Alice's Antics, the blogosphere and vlogosphere are being accessed by people who before, would laugh at the idea of 'internet fame'. My own mum left on my bed, a page of the Times open on an interview with Tanya Burr, ready for me to read. And that, is incredible.

But the last three years haven't been life changing solely because of the online community expanding. No no no. On a more personal level, since writing my first blog post, to now, I've moved out, lived in Italy, started university, met people who are now forever staples in my life, discovered my love for gin and tonic (and red wine), lost our family dog of 16 years, been on too many dates, eaten too many drunken domino's, moved to France for 4 months, reached 325,000 views on Alice's Antics and now, I am here. Twenty one, and about to start my final year of university, fully comfortable with who I am and what I like and don't like and finally at peace with the fact I will probably love Harry Potter more than any man. And that's just the way it is. 

Even when I think about this time last year, so much has changed. My parents are now a no-child household as my sister has moved to Dublin, I live with a different (but equally wonderful) group of friends, I spent almost 4 months unable to walk at the start of the year, I somehow got through the most challenging academic year of my life and I am currently writing a blog post when I should be researching for my dissertation (holy shit). 

I want to say thank you. I started writing Alice's Antics to 3 people, and now we have a small island of humans. I am positive I would write regardless of how many people read it, but receiving emails and tweets and comments is the loveliest kind of reminder of why I do blog, knowing there are readers in Israel and Germany and Brazil who click on my little piece of internet. It absolutely blows my mind and I appreciate anyone and everyone who takes their time to read my thoughts. 

I'm still baffled as to what I want to do. I probably have even less direction than I did three years ago. I started writing my blog to document m travels, and ended up finding something I love almost almost as much as Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic. And that's largely, because of any of you reading this.

Thank you so much for your continued support, whether you live next door or in a different continent. 

Here's to the next year of blogging. 

Ciao for Now!

x