tags: in-the-flesh
---
+<p style="text-align: right">**Motto**:
+La casa cu patru fete mor gainile de sete
+si fantana-i [supt parete][maramu].</p>
+
+So [as I was saying][btcbase-1922407], a month ago this time I was
+travellin' through that old country with tall, "falnici" mountains
+hosting thick, tall, "falnice" woods of beech, fir, oak and other
+beautiful, majestic trees, whom the locals use to build their wooden
+houses in gardens wide as the eye can see, bound by wooden fences with
+great finely-decorated wooden gates, neighbouring small yet so very
+lovely wooden churches and so on and so forth. Anyway, I suck at this
+so I'll let the photos speak in my stead.
+
+Unfortunately for the reader, all my photos of wooden decorations also
+suck, so none shall be posted here, but owing probably to the fact
+that I spent so much time doing engineering and the likes, I've got
+train photos:
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-02.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-02-thumb.png"> </a>
+
<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-01.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-01-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-08.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-08-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+I gave those bitches some [iuțeală maximă][maximum-quickness]. Mind
+you, those trains are used to transport logs and tourists (so, pretty
+much the same thing), hence the slowness. And when did everyone get
+the fuck in such a hurry all of a sudden? And speaking of hurries and
+modern technology, here's a blast from the '90s:
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-03.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-03-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+I found this little gem -- with 9999 variations of five games, yes?
+and running on AAA batteries for a week, not like today's shitphone
+gaming implements -- at a "chinezării" store over in Upper
+Wischau. Unfortunately there's not much else to see in that sad little
+<del>town</del>[pre-urban][btcbase-1918305] shithole. Let's see:
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-10.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-10-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+Above: the redundantly-named Wasser water. Below: SC Tacniram SRL
+doesn't seem to have been faring very well in the last few
+years. Aside from their sad public record, they were closed and they
+had one (one!) ad for an apartment sale -- I've no idea who buys real
+estate there these days, so I'll leave it at that.
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-11.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-11-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-12.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-12-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+Above: a view of the town from a quiet, lonely yet so sweet vantage
+point on the outskirts. Notice: the churches, the school, the river, a
+bunch of houses and that's about where this Vișeu ends; I don't expect
+the other one's much different either, nor am I inclined to find
+out. Otherwise the town's main attraction is the so-called "mocăniță"
+train ride, with the vehicle at the beginning of this post -- and that
+mainly due to that whole picturesque atmosphere oozing out of
+it. There is nothing else to see there: you'd expect that at the end
+of that ride there'd be local girls cooking traditional local food,
+but it's just the usual Romanian kitschfest with shitbeer and the
+Romanian kafta known as "mici". Thanks but no thanks, I can have the
+very same anywhere in this country, in fact I just had some this
+weekend in the heart of Ferentari, without having to [queue][queue]
+with all the unwashed orcs.
+
+Anyway, back to the outskirts of Vișeu de Sus, rural settings have
+this great advantage of readily available apple factories in other
+people's gardens:
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-14.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-14-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+When's the last time you just grabbed an apple from a tree and ate it?
+How often do you do that? I don't, so I guess the people on the
+outskirts of Oberwischau are literally laughing their asses at this
+overly pompous sonofabitch who's commenting on this and that like he
+owns the place.
+
+Anyways, near the garden where that apple tree lives there's a
+cemetery -- with German, Hungarian, Polish and
+I-don't-know-from-where-sounding names, 'cuz Maramureș is a country of
+its own, what -- and near the cemetery there's a green pasture:
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-13.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-13-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+When's the last time you just sat your ass on a green pasture? Well we
+didn't because there was an angry dog nearby coming to greet us and
+let us know we're sitting on its property.
+
+Below, a photostudy done with a fixed 50mm lens. The lens, you see, is
+entirely unfit for this kind of photography, but what can I do? It's
+the one I had on me at the moment, so I squeezed the most out of
+it. I'm going to let the reader decide which of the photos is the
+best.
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-15.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-15-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-16.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-16-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-17.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-17-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-04.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-04-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+Above: the Horses' Waterfall and canyon near Borșa. Below: views from
+the same canyon and mountain. As the saying goes: frumoasă țară, păcat
+că-i locuită, i.e. beautiful country, too bad it's inhabited.
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-05.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-05-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-06.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-06-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-07.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-07-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-09.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-09-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+Above: choo-choo! along the Vaser goes the cocăniță. Below, we head
+straight to the Marmatian Sziget, where some people made a museum, the
+Memorial of the Victims of Communism etcaetera TODO troll.
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-18.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-18-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-19.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-19-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-20.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-20-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-21.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-21-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-22.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-22-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-23.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-23-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-24.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-24-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-25.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-25-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-26.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-26-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-27.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-27-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-28.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/08/maramures-28-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+[maramu]: http://trilema.com/2014/maramu/
+[btcbase-1922407]: http://btcbase.org/log/2019-07-14#1922407
+[maximum-quickness]: /posts/y05/08d-sinaia.html#selection-245.34-249.16
+[btcbase-1918305]: http://btcbase.org/log/2019-06-16#1918305
+[queue]: http://trilema.com/2019/oslo-that-unredeemably-sad-shithole/#footnote_2_84244
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