It was July 2000. I was lying on my bed trying to overcome the heat that made breathing almost impossible. That's when my favourite radio station, Radio21, broadcasted the hot news: "The famous Irish group Westlife will be coming to Bucharest for a show on the 19th of August…". I thought it was the heat that made me hear that wonderful thing, was I dreaming? I called immediately the radio station to ask if it was true. Fortunately, a DJ that I knew was there and he told me that yes, it was true. I burst into tears, it was absolutely fantastic, the only thing I could think was that I needed to buy a ticket, presents for the guys, lots of films for the camera, found out when they get to Bucharest, the hour, the airport, the venue, the shops that sold tickets, everything. I needed good money, coz everything is damn expensive down here. Firstly I called a friend of mine who's deeply in love with Bryan. When she heard the big news she kept on screaming in my ear for 15 minutes. Afterwards I called a music store that usually sells tickets for concerts. They told me the tickets were supposed to be sold from the next morning and the price blew my wig. But that wasn't important, the important thing was that they were coming. I began to count the days, the hours, the minutes, the seconds until the big moment. That DJ called me and told me the venue and the hour of the show and he promised to give me more details on the next days. I knew I had to meet the guys personally, but how? Without modesty I can say that I'm the biggest Romanian fan that they have. They are liked here and their music is sold and played on the radio stations, but real fans it's kind of hard to find.

Next thing I remembered was that my brother's best friend was working on the international airport so he had to know something, if not in that moment, then at least a day before their arrival. I called him, I was talking real loud coz I was pretty excited and he told me to slow down and talk properly so he can understand what I was saying. Finally, he understood and he promised to find out everything possible. He's never been really friendly to me, but he knew this was too important for me.

On the next day I was in front of the music shop two hours before they opened. That friend of mine joined me an hour later. When the first guy got there and saw us drinking coffee on the steps he asked us what we were doing there. We told him we were waiting to buy tickets for Westlife's concert and he asked us if we had slept on the stairs? We answer no and laughed and he invited us in. The tickets weren't there yet. They were supposed to be brought in about 30 minutes. He offered us one of his two croissants and he prepared us another two coffees. He was pretty sweet considering the fact that boys down here don't like bands like Westlife or Boyzone. He also promised to come to the concert. The tickets arrived and we were almost in tears. We bought two of them, the first tickets sold for their concert, and hugged each other: we were going to see the boys! We thanked the guy from the store and when we were about to leave a man that came in earlier asked for 6 tickets for the show. Great! We were not going to be alone there and scare the guys away and make them stay away from our country for the future.