Romania – 13 Sept 2021 – Wetskills Challenge day 3
By Mariëlle van Es (Wageningen University)
Today was our second day of the small field trip to the country side. Riding around in a bus and seeing some parts of the Romanian landscape was a lot of fun. We also got to know the group a lot better so after this trip we’re ready to start the team work. After breakfast, with as usual way too much but delicious food, it was time to visit a vineyard. The vineyard is part of USMAV and besides making wine they are doing research on wine making and grape cultivation. We learned a lot about wine making and we ate the sweetest grapes ever. It was very nice that they were processing some grapes at that moment and we were able to see how they separate the grapes from the stem and prepare it for the wine making. We got to taste some grape juice as well as some wine. The grape juice is very good and tastes like wine but without the alcohol. However, you still cannot drink too much of it because your stomach will not like it. Drinking wine around 10 in the morning before coffee was a first for me.
After our trip to the vineyard we travelled to Buzau to visit Buzau water company. I felt slightly underdressed in my chill pants when we entered the company. They prepared a nice welcome with sweets, water and gifts. We had a presentation about the company and I learned a lot about water in this area. We also visited a drinking water plant of the company nearby. It was very interesting to see the drinking water plant, however sometimes it was a bit technical. We had a late but delicious lunch with pizza and Papanaşi, a typical Romanian dessert. It’s a sort of donut with sour cream and jam, it was super tasty but also super heavy. I think nobody could finish two of them so we took a lot of Papanaşi with us in our doggy bag.
Our last stop before boing back to Bucharest was Edenland, an adventure park. First, the teams were announced. I’m excited I can work on the flash flood inspiration guide the coming days together with my team. In Edenland we hired a mountain bike and we biked around in the park for a while. Some others tried archery and shooting but that’s not really my thing so I just watched. We returned to Bucharest and had some late dinner.
I’m looking forward to start on our cases and learn more about water in this country.
