This episode follows a story I had not been tracking closely before coming to Romania: the Romanian hacker Guccifer and Robert Mueller's investigation of "Guccifer 2.0." This story has everything: the Illuminati, election hacking, and an unnecessary reference to John Mulaney. I hope you like it!
 
Also, because this is more of an explainer episode (or trying to be), I try that cold open thing where I have a clip of the audio before the music. V spicy.
 
 Articles that helped me:
 - NYT Guccifer interview: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/world/europe/for-guccifer-hacking-was-easy-prison-is-hard-.html
- New Yorker article on Mueller's indictment: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-the-latest-mueller-indictment-reveals-about-wikileaks-ties-to-russia-and-what-it-doesnt
- Motherboard's reporting on Guccifer: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/j5npvd/guccifer-2-playboy-robbin-young-twitter-sexting
- Motherboard's reporting on Guccifer 2.0: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wnxgwq/guccifer-20-is-likely-a-russian-government-attempt-to-cover-up-their-own-hack
- Vox's election hacking piece: https://www.vox.com/2018/10/25/18001684/2018-midterms-hacked-russia-election-security-voting

Amazing theme music: Romanian Hora by The Underscore Orkestrais licensed under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Immigration isn't fun anywhere and Romania is definitely no exception. Four-month old Jay, his parents Trent and Rachel, and I spend hours waiting in a food court just so the one and only most high immigration officer of Cluj can refuse to do his job. In other news, another Romanian woman also at immigration that day is exceedingly nice to us and I talk about why the jokes about Nicolaj from Brooklyn 99 are at best lazy and at worst racist.

Thank you to Trent, Rachel, and most especially Jay for making this experience infinitely more fun.

Pictured: Jay and me being warmly welcome into Romania.

Amazing theme music: Romanian Hora by The Underscore Orkestra is licensed under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

This episode features Romanian academics and professors Monica and Dominic. I was lucky enough to meet Monica and Dominic at an academic conference sponsored by the Romanian Association of American Studies and Fulbright in Constanta. Monica gave a presentation on Chicana literature that absolutely blew my friend Josh and me away and we went over to compliment her after the session. I'm so lucky to say we've become friends.

This episode focuses on Monica's life and work (I plan to do another episode about Dominic). We discuss Monica's memories of growing up as a Greek Catholic minority during communism, her feelings on joining a co-op in California, the origins of Spanglish as a means of resistance, Donald Trump, and the Big Short.

Washington Post article on Giuliani: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/giuliani-letter-criticizing-romanias-anti-corruption-drive-draws-state-department-attention/2018/08/29/8d8f689c-abcf-11e8-8f4b-aee063e14538_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b3999ed3a0c1

Amazing theme music: Romanian Hora by The Underscore Orkestra is licensed under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Picture taken at the The National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest.

This episode gives some details about this podcast, like why I am the next Ezra Klein. It also details my first couple of weeks in Romania, which have included making friends, being shocked by my washing machine, and hearing crazy covers of American songs.

Amazing theme music: Romanian Hora by The Underscore Orkestra is licensed under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.