Back on the second to last Thursday of October 2011, I was randomly and without much notice invited to tag along on a school fieldtrip to Bucharest to visit something called “ROMEXPO”. Up until the time of departure, and really until after we had arrived at the event, I had little idea about what was actually about to take place. In hurried English, my counterpart had explained that it was an “Agricultural Show.” I of course had no idea what that meant, but was game for the adventure anyway. My counterpart made the necessary arrangements to cover my classes for the day and I met the group at 8am the next morning.
The lot of us piled onto a huge decked out charter bus for the sixty-minute ride, with the exact destination still somewhat of a mystery. Our group consisted of mostly 11th and 12th graders from different divisions within the school, though being that our high school is dedicated to agriculture, all participants related in someway to the impending event. To serve as chaperones, several teachers and our school’s director also came along and were unexpectedly humming with an elevated level of excitement. It’s still unclear to me exactly why they were so giddy, though as unlikely as it seems, I think they were genuinely interested in the agriculturally educational aspect of this trip. The investment for this little adventure was only 20 RON or about $6; even with all of the participants we had I still can’t manage to figure out how this paid for the gas let alone the driver’s time or our entrance fees. The trip to Bucharest was colorfully highlighted by the collective singing of my students, mostly out of key, to their favorite Romanian pop songs.
Regardless, we arrived at our destination on the north side of the city, more or less on time (by local standards). Being that up until now I had only heard the name of the venue and not actually seen it; everything began to come together when I saw the giant letters on top of the ROMEXPO convention center. As I soon discovered, dozens of companies and organizations related to agriculture had rented out the multi-building space to have a full-scale convention about agriculture. Immediately upon walking through the rear gates I was shocked to see gigantic farm equipment, with tires alone bigger than any car I have ever owned. They were all bright and glossy red or green and featured price tags in the six figure Euros.
In addition to the monstrous trackers, there was anything you could imagine relating to the earth and growing vegetables or raising livestock; not limited to even livestock itself, a topic that we will get to shortly. The first building that we entered was secondary to the main exhibition hall but featured row upon row of kiosks educating attendees on the finer points of irrigation or pest control. There were stalls where one could buy seeds, bulbs or sapling trees, right next to stalls selling mousetraps. Want to restock your tool shed? You could do that here too, with everything from the latest hedge trimmers, shovels and pruners.
What really struck me was the level of professionalism on display. I fully expected life-warn old men in overalls chewing on the stems of hay, but mostly what I saw were young men and women in business suits, the same attire you would see at any convention in the US. Not only was everyone well dressed but also the kiosks themselves reflected a high level of sophistication with advanced graphics, lighting schemes and inventive demonstrations. This same theme was reflected throughout all of the convention center’s buildings….save one.
Early on during my exploration I teamed up with my 11th graders with whom I am working with in preparation for the European Wine Championship next April. We have a good rapport and had a lot of fun wondering around. As we went from exhibit to exhibit and building to building seeing similar displays about innovative ecology products and brand-name fertilizers, imagine my surprise when we opened the door of an isolated building and I was bowled over by a waft of foul air. We had entered the part of the convention exhibiting live animals; mostly different types of fowl but also the biggest rabbits you’d ever see and even a mean old looking beaver. Cages were stacked four and five high and two deep as onlookers wondered around in awe of the spectacle. On sale were baby chickens, exotic parrots and everything in-between. A flutter of feathers floated through the atmosphere on the barely breathable stench of farm animals. At first this whole calamity shocked me, but as I thought more about it, I figured that we must have this type of event in the United States too, though I would reckon that ventilation standards are stricter.
Escaping into the clean cold air outside we took several deep breaths and made our way over to the main exhibition hall; a large, round, multi-story building, seemingly gaining it’s architectural inspiration from UFOs. Inside, the building features a hollow center from floor to ceiling which is surrounded by several balconies on the outside wall that were lined with more displays. This building seemed to be dedicated to the end of the agricultural cycle, food processing. Here there were processed meats, cookies, cakes, ice creams, and even a shinny covrigi warmer that was dispensing samples of the aforementioned Romanian pretzel. Like any baked goods, these things can be generally horrible, but if you find one that is fresh and warm then you are in for a real treat.
This day of mystery turned out to be quite fun and educational. The students benefited from the practical experience of seeing all of the latest offerings on the market in their respective fields and I was exposed to a completely new experience and learned about a new venue. The return trip was much less eventful as most of my students fell asleep, exhausted from the day.
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