Wetskills Romania 2017 – May 16th
“Second day at the ExpoApa”
Yesterday, we had a great and impressive day. The ExpoApa, the conference on water for Romania, started. It can probably be read in the previous blog how impressive the palace was, the amount of important people presenting the conference and how many enthusiastic businessmen were present. The second day of this huge conference was a bit different though. We were free to come to the ExpoApa (as Dutch students at least) or to do whatever we wanted.
Katerina and me wanted to see some of the speakers, so we were the only ones that went. How fortunate were we. A retired professor on wastewater treatment and especially on the network of pipelines that was needed, gave a marvellous speech. He, quite different from the general view, looked at the network of pipelines as the nerves of a normal leave. Once the leave is ‘young’ and small (a small city), the nerves were easily to establish and it didn’t took much energy to make the system. Once the leave grows, it costs the tree effort and energy to re-establish a good system to connect all cells to this network. To make this story short, it was a really good and nice speaker which really inspired everyone in the room not to do things fast, but to take time and to put effort into it.
Okay, so after this presentation we, Katerina and myself, wanted to see more of the huge palace of Parliament. We have been already to a few rooms, but we were told that it was possible to go to the roof and experience the best view on Bucharest one can ever have. The sky was blue, it was 28 degrees and there couldn’t be a better day to enjoy the view. We went to the information stand of the ExpoApa, two Romanian girls, and asked if it was possible to have a tour and otherwise, where we should ask for it to make it happen. “No, No” was the only reaction. Okay, they must have been misinformed since there were tours all day long and it couldn’t be that it was impossible. Off we went to the tourist entrance, which is truly a 20 minutes’ walk around the castle since it is forbidden to go through the palace yourself. When we arrived, at the gate, a sign showed prices for the different tours. It said that a tour to the roof and basement and additional information would cost us 55Lei (14eu) so we went in to do it. The nice lady behind the desk said that the only tour possible at that time and day was the tour around the first floor, where also the ExpoApa is. Unfortunately, it is only possible in the summerL. Disappointed we went back to the ExpoApa, but we still wanted to enjoy the view from the front entrance. It is actually forbidden to go there, but the guard was nice and told us it was okay for only usJ. We walked towards the front entrance, trying to look like important people and saw the main entrance. When we were there, Katerina offered me to make a picture, also in this blog. Thanks to the guard, who gave us the opportunity to do so, my day was made once again.
Multumesc 🙂
Hielke van der Ster (Utrecht University)
