It's been a little over a year now since I started "blogging" and four and a half months since I started updating on a mostly daily basis. I don't remember anymore why I started doing this, but it has in that time become a gift to me, a way to record, digest, ask questions, celebrate, mourn. I don't think I will ever write for a purpose beyond my own pleasure, but what pleasure I have found here....I am continually baffled and delighted by the people who find this blog and the things they have to say.
- This morning (in Spanish) I met this guy at the SAM Guest House where we are staying. When I returned this afternoon, he asked me, "Are you Hannah?" (remember that since I met him in Spanish, I was Ani in the morning). He was looking up something on the internet during the day and came across the blog.
- A Peruvian (I think) stranger commented on a recent post about Lima, telling me to be very cautious here since it's so dangerous and that Miraflores is a nice safe part of town. Those things are probably both true, but they are also total proof in a hilarious way of everything I've been saying about how cautious (paranoid?) Peruvians are. I love it!
- I recently got an email from an Australian stranger with some good reading suggestions.
- People from over 72 countries and every state but Rhode Island have visited this blog. I say "over 72" because there are quite a few countries in the "neocounter" on the right side of the blog that aren't mentioned in the Google Analytics list. So I'm guessing Google isn't counting quite right. I pasted the map above from Google. Green and darker means someone from that country has landed on the blog at least once.
- People get here the strangest ways. I have found links to my own blog on websites of people I don't know (and people I do know). 8 times people have gotten to my blog by searching "hannah murray naked." You will not find any nude photos on here, and I am not a British actress. Sorry. 3 people have gotten here looking for the Anne of Green Gables quote, "My life is a perfect graveyard of burried hopes...."
- All said and done, there have been 9,071 hits since July 9, 2007 (and some more between March and July). Although I bet at least half have been me, my parents, and a handful of my closest friends.
Let me just say for the record that if I singled you out, I didn't mean it to embarrass you. Beyond loving writing for my own sake, I want to write as a means to encourage others to live and live to the full. I'd like to think that my "international fame" is touching that goal, so I'm glad for all my readers who happen to be strangers!
I'm one of those strangers. I use "statcounter" one of the features allows me to block cookies from myself, so it doesn't count my own hits. I have a blog about life in Siberia that is very similar to yours. If you are interested then send me an email. If found your blog, when searching Alpha.