On one hand, I keep meeting new people who have heard of me from people I’ve never met or communicated with in my life. On the other hand, I’ve got to be one of the worst Cluj bloggers out there. Sorry, Unicorn City!

Other than a single picture, I haven’t said one single word about the past two weeks, which have been the busiest of the year for Cluj. First, there was an entire week of Zile de Cluj or the “Cluj Days” Festival and then a second week of TIFF, the country’s largest film festival.

Celebrities! Movies! Tourists! Foreigners! Cooking Demonstrations! Displays of judo prowess! All kinds of fun stuff and I didn’t report on it, attend it, look at it, participate in it or pay it the slightest attention. Heck, I didn’t even mention the huge celebration in town when a local team won the national basketball championship either.

Bad blogger!

All I did was meet up with The Woman on Korean Food Day, get there fortuitously just as the food was being cooked and served, eat a plate of unknown Korean food and that’s it. Ten minutes.

I’ve been in Unicorn City long enough to remember when TIFF was a rather small, low key affair, held in a largely abandoned city during the hot summer when most of the students were gone. Now it’s morphed into some glitzy, elaborate affair with hundreds of movies.

Frankly, over the years, all I’ve ever done TIFF-wise was pay a few lei (the prices used to be super cheap), sit down in a comfortable chair, watch the first 10 minutes and then fall asleep. I stayed awake last year through an outdoor screening of this movie only because it was cold and the chair was uncomfortable. This year I managed to skip the whole thing entirely :)

Long story short, movies don’t excite me. I’m sure I’ve missed some masterpieces over the years but I think that’s a regret I can live with.

I did see about ten thousand people all milling around the streets, eating ice cream and talking excitedly, so I’m glad people had fun. Winters in Romania can be unbelievably brutal so I think it’s a good thing that the people can get out of the house and enjoy themselves when the weather is nice.

Same for the “Days of Cluj” really. I only went to the Korean thing because there’s a long-range political angle there, and I wanted to at least eyeball some of the people who might be involved in this city’s future. But I’m still glad thousands of other people got to get out of the house and have fun (for little to no money) and get some sun on their faces.

Interesting note: although the Korean food was indeed cooked by Koreans, it was served to the crowd by some Romanian ladies. When I asked one what the ingredients were in the food, she said, “Rice and some Korean vegetables” LOL

Nonetheless, I know a lot of prominent Cluj bloggers read my site here so my apologies to all of you for lack of “coverage” on the local scene. Although you all did a fantastic job though, no? No real reason for me to describe it at length, although I did want to mention it if only to say that it happened and I’m happy for the people of my city having a good time, even if I was mostly working and not participating :)

Meanwhile I see that the Lord of Cluj has been pissing off the Hungarians while at the same time angling himself to become the Earl of the Northwest if the proposed Eight Regions plan comes to fruition. Too funny, really, and worth more discussion, but at another time, eh?

Long Live Unicorn City!

A comment from IMDB about the movie I saw last year:

If you were expecting some afternoon fun maybe you were watching the wrong movie.

LOL!