A photographic tour of Bucharest; in today's issue: Lacul Morii

So this Wednesday I grabbed my fancy-schmancy DSLR and went to another not-quite-aimless stroll through town. Seeing that the weather finally took a break from the daily thunderstorms¹, I headed off to the Western part of the town, in the Crângași neighbourhood, where a human construction called Lacul Morii is situated. The result was quite surprisingly ninety photos, of which I processed twenty, of which fifteen or so are posted below.

Speaking of below, above: the campus of University Politehnica of Bucharest, one of Romania's best schools, from which emerged well-known names such as Ion Iliescu, Ecaterina Andronescu, Petre Roman and Liviu Dragnea. Oh, and they also teach engineering there, or so they say. Anyway, just in case you're wondering, the UFO-shaped oddity in the background is the last level of the Rectorate building, and we² are all waiting for the day when it takes off. When -- not if! occult Dacian technology and all that.

A bit to the north, the Dâmbovița river³ separates the academic campus, i.e. the place where students supposedly go to study, from the Regie neighbourhood and student campus⁴, where students go to get some sleep now and then, but primarily for eating, partying, fucking, camwhoring -- in other words, living. Too bad the place is also filled with massive amounts of huge cockroaches. Anyway, closing this particular parenthesis:

Below, a wide view of Lacul Morii. And this is where, predictably, I stop again to tell a story.

Back in the nineteenth century, when Bucharest was way more of a shithole than it is today, "nobody could have predicted" that the Dâmbovița river would frequently flood the town, not to mention the smelly smells and the general swamp atmosphere -- where somewhat unrelatedly, somewhere on the river one could find the Ciurel Watermill. Anyway, in the late twentieth century, an illiterate shoeman -- meanwhile shot by a bunch of other illiterate "people themselves" -- in his destructive march to redesign the city, rebuilt the riverbed on two levels, one for the river and one for water recirculation through the town's sewers, and built the foundation for the so-called "Mill Lake", connected to the river via a dam to control the flow⁵.

That aside, the lake is surrounded by a pier, where in the evenings the local fauna goes for a walk, running, fishing, the occasional wank in the bushes, and... well, what are these guys up to anyway:

In the northern part of the lake, an island:

Above, the Ducks come from the Trucks -- I heard that on TV, so it must be true! Below, a shot idly taken from under a tree, where the afternoon's blazing sun couldn't reach me.

At twenty meters' distance on the shore there was a guy trying to read a book, while being pestered by an old bum who yammered about some TV starlet or another, and complained about how young girls nowadays keep those fat cunts of theirs in their blue jeans all day long on this hot weather, letting them gather melted cheese, and why don't they let the pussy get some fresh air anyway? Poor idiot had plenty of decades to figure out why the social state sucks: it gives him all that money for nothing, but no chicks for free. And yet he didn't, and why would that be? Would you happen to know?

Above, a bunch of plants from (I can only guess) the Carduus genus, known around the place as "ciulini", widespread in this geographical region, ready to further spread their seeds by way of winds. Below, a willow tree shielding the lens from the sunlight; also, a pair of leftover plastic bottles on the ground, because what, Romanians around these places are orcs.

Above: look ma, I r arteest! Below: moar arteesteec geometry, followed by a coupla more lake shots.

Finally, that damn dam. The writing on that wall pre-dates 1989, which is easy to discern by the average Romanian for orthographic reasons. "River" is cognate with "rivus", which led to "râu", right? So then, why the fuck "â" and not "î"? Because a bunch of wretches known as "the Romanian Academy" imagined themselves the navel of Romanian speaking and writing, is why.

Post-finally, and further downstream: a night pic of a river; and a night pic of a road that leads to a river, crossed by a bridge that leads nowhere in particular. Bonne nuit, Paris d'Orclandie!