Blogging Milestones, the BBC, and Me

There are various milestones in any blogger’s career. For some, it’s a certain number of followers or page views; for others it’s achieving major recognition. The milestones vary, but they do pop up occasionally. This week had one expected milestone for me and also a very unexpected one.

You see, this is my 1000th post. Crazy! I knew this was coming and tried to come up with an appropriate topic, but I was having a hard time narrowing it down. So I decided to take my blog’s name to heart and photograph my new flamingo sculpture in various spots around Utrecht. (For the record, I bought the flamingo on my recent trip back to the US. Packing that was interesting!)
Sadly, I should have taken the photos yesterday, when the weather was glorious. Instead, I waited until today when the weather took a turn for the worse. Blue skies were replaced with grey ones, and a fine mist made everything — including me — very soggy. Still, I managed to visit the Spoetnikkijker and the Domplein before my camera, my bike lock, and my will gave up the ghost. The Nijntje Pleintje will have to wait. Plus, I wasn’t sure how good it it would be for Utrecht’s reputation to have a soggy woman carrying a bejeweled flamingo roaming the city streets. I didn’t want to scare the tourists.
So what was the unexpected milestone, you ask? Well, that would be the inclusion of a link to and brief description of my blog in a BBC Travel article published this week. Holy Traffic Increase, Batman! I’m obsessively checking my stats, because for three days now I’ve been experiencing a much higher number of visitors than usual. It’s exciting!
It’s made me rather giddy, to be honest, and I want to tell everyone that “Hey! That’s my blog that’s featured!” So to everyone who follows me on Twitter and has seen multiple links to the article from me, sorry. I promise to stop. What’s that? No, I’m not tweeting another link in the middle of writing this … Oh, hey, look! A flamingo and a palm tree! In Utrecht!
So yes, it’s been a big week for numbers. Best of all, it’s meant more followers of my blog, which I truly do appreciate. Those are the most satisfying numbers of all. I want to thank everyone for clicking through and welcome those who have decided to stick around. Feel free to say hi and ask any questions about why Utrecht and the Netherlands are one of the happiest places to live in the world.