As you know, I met a fan of the blog the other night. I asked her how she had originally found me and I was laughing with pure delight because it’s a wonderful story. I’m going to tell this story right now because an exact repeat of it is happening this month.

I started this blog in April 2010 and wrote some posts sporadically until about July or so. By the time November 2010 came around, I was building up a small but steady stream of regular readers. And then one day the number of visitors simply exploded. I went from a couple of hundred to thousands and thousands and they kept pouring in.

Why? Because someone found my post on the 37 Steps and posted it on Facebook. It got linked, reposted and liked and all those other things until thousands of Romanians were coming here just to read that one article. The nice young woman I met the other night found me the same way in 2010.

And now it’s apparently happening again. The “37 Steps” is working its magic and so there a whole host of you coming here for the first time. If that is you, welcome aboard!

Indeed. There are hundreds of posts and dozens of videos on this site, so take your time and explore. If you’re just now hearing of me for the first time, this video will make you laugh and explain about who I am.

I was laughing the other day because my perpetually drunken landlord showed up and was shouting my name with enthusiasm (along with a big hug and la multi ani!!!). He told me had been in Spain to visit his daughter and seen me on television there. How? Oh jeez, I forgot that ProTV has an international channel and broadcasts this via satellite all over Europe. Apparently my little episode went out on ProTV International as well so God only knows how many Romanians all over the world saw it :)

Speaking of TV, yesterday I got the call from a brand-new channel here in Cluj. They wanted to film me so I went down and met with them near the catedrala, which was full of people because yesterday (January 6) was a big deal in the Orthodox faith – Saint John the Baptist day. I don’t know much about it except that they were giving out jugs of holy water (apa sfintita) as fast as they could. The camera man saw I was curious about it (having never seen this before) and gave me a jug. I was thirsty and so I asked him if it was okay to drink it (remember, I’m not Orthodox so I didn’t know) and he said it was so I said “paharul sus” and had a swig. Pretty tasty :)

Supposedly all the footage they shot went out on their 6pm broadcast yesterday but I didn’t see it and there’s no archive of it. If they even used it, alas, it was seen by a few hundred lucky people and it has now disappeared into the void. It’s okay, you didn’t miss that much as it was mostly them filming me as I walked around in front of the church and pretended to inspect the holy water distribution. It does kind of make me laugh though how I am now used to pretending to be normal while walking around in public while someone films me and hearing the gasps of the people around me going, “They’re filming!” LOL

I took the jug of holy water home so once I get my camera connected, I’ll post a picture of that so all of you can see it.

Once again, if this is your first time here, welcome aboard! Fix yourself a coffee or a tea and enjoy all the goodies on this site. If you click on the purple dice (zar) on the right-hand side of this blog, you’ll get a random article. Put your feet up and relax and stay a while. Also, be sure to let me know what size shirt you wear so I can send you your official “37 Steps Club” member T-shirt :P

Oh and one more thing. Say it with me now…

LA MULTI ANI!!!!!!