Cav's Place

You’d think that, after running the distance of a half marathon on Tuesday and also walking about one and a half kilometers to the park and back, I’d have spent the rest of the week rather off my feet. And, in truth, that’s what I thought as well, but it sure didn’t happen, despite not sleeping well either. I mean, got some six hours yesterday and only about three and a half today, and I’ll be getting even less tonight, or more exactly in the morning, since I’ll be waking up for the race.
The lack of sleep is why I’m writing this quick personal post now, actually, since I have one in mind with a suggestion for a new Formula 1 qualifying format, now that they gave up on that experiment after two races and returned to the old one, but doubt I’ll manage that tomorrow and, as usual, want to avoid another Sunday update. The thing is that I have that post “written” in my mind in detail and initially meant to try actually writing it yesterday, but then gave up on the idea and now I’m worried I’ll mess up some numbers or other details due to being tired, so better leave it for next week.

To return to the distance covered on foot this week, there was a debate announced for Thursday, the topic being the rise of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn, as part of what I learned is a series of discussions on the modern Left in the Anglo-Saxon space, which was picked as the topic when the organizers tried to look for one that’d tackle something that needs to be discussed and developed in Romania while at the same time staying away from the mess that Romanian politics are, especially since we have both local and parliamentary elections this year. Either way, though it would appear that the event was streamed and also recorded, before it started it didn’t seem like it was going to be, so I decided to go and, while the rain made me take the metro there, I came back on foot, plus that I also got a little confused in that area, after getting off the metro, so I walked for some time then as well. This added over five kilometers more, probably around six, but let’s say five and a half.

And then there was today, when there was a fair with Romanian products in a park that’s far away from where I live. Most of them were obviously going to be clothes, a fair amount of the rest jewelry or accessories, but there were a few interesting things as well, so I thought I’d have a look and also decided to go there on foot, in part also to prove to myself that I can manage it just fine. And that was even though I had no money on me, so there was no chance to actually buy anything even if I’d have somehow managed to do so, which was in itself extremely unlikely due to requiring actually interacting with someone directly and also choosing a product with crowds around me and people staring. So, for pointlessly struggling to squeeze through the crowd for less than 15 minutes in order to have a quick look, I walked for three hours, about one and a half each way, apparently covering 18 kilometers, which doesn’t count any distance covered as I wandered around inside.

Round everything to the nearest half a kilometer and you have 21 plus 1.5 plus 5.5 plus 18, 46 kilometers, but let’s simply go with the “over 45” from the post’s title, to be sure. And my muscles are mostly fine, my knees are also quite fine, the only problems being my right hip and a certain spot above my right ankle. A bit worried about those, as this may take a toll on joints and there’s also such a thing as stress fractures, but that spot got better after the run and should probably get better now as well if I’ll give it a little time, and I’m hoping the hip isn’t anything serious either, as I seemed to just be able to push through the pain today and it actually got better as I did so, starting to act up after only some three kilometers but then not being much of a problem the rest of the way, with the exception of the moments when I had to cross some rather steep bridges as I crossed the park to reach the fair.

Did something perhaps a bit crazy yesterday, but it was planned and there’s a reason for it, though I won’t get into that at the moment. What I will say is that, assuming Google Maps is right and a lap around the lake has 3.2 kilometers and the part I added at the end has another 1.9, I covered the distance of a half marathon, 21.1 kilometers, and I managed to do it in under two hours. More specifically, the time was 1:59:11, and I can say I was never exactly concerned about that target, despite hitting a wall around 17.5 kilometers and starting to lose time from then on.
Then again, I can say I wasn’t concerned about the target while running, but before I started I didn’t even really think I should try it, having target sector and lap times that’d have led me to a total time of 2:15 or even 2:30 if needed. Did start from those required for two hours and then worked my way up in order to determine the others, but sticking to 18-minute laps from start to end hardly seemed likely and as I started running I was still trying to decide between at least making that attempt and sticking to the target times for 2:15, which seemed to be the manageable ones. The 2:30 ones were there because I tried to keep expectations low, but I’d have been disappointed to need to use them.
A bit of a problem were the sector times, since the first sector is only slightly shorter than the second, the normal times, during regular runs that don’t challenge the records, being around 4:45 for the first and around 5:20 or perhaps 5:25 for the second. However, to keep things simple for the top goal, which was clearly going to leave me with little energy to spare for working with numbers, I decided to set targets of five, six and seven minutes, respectively, so I had to go quite a bit faster while in the first sector and then would slow down more in the last, where the normal time may vary a fair bit but can be said to be around six minutes.

Obviously can’t recall exact sector times anymore, but I’m pretty sure I barely managed to meet the five-minute target for that first sector on three of the six laps, and by that I mean covering it in exactly 5:00 and needing to pretty much sprint for the last 30 seconds or so in order to manage it. The most I gained there was maybe four seconds, or even only three, while I’m quite sure the most I gained in the second sector was ten seconds and in the third 13 seconds, which I was rather unhappy with, since it was in spite of slowing down significantly towards the end and meant I had tired myself too much by pushing harder than I had to until then.
What I remember clearly is that, as I was running, I realized that last week’s second run proved I could easily do two 17-minute laps and the two ten-kilometer runs proved I can just manage three 17.5-minute ones, so I should probably just be able to do four 18-minute ones, leaving me with the last two and those final 1.9 kilometers to worry about. For that reason, I planned and managed to have a minute in hand by the end of the fourth lap, but not significantly more than that, so I won’t tire myself more than I needed to. Then, a bit to my surprise, I still felt quite fine during the fifth lap as well, gaining just a few seconds more, so I started the sixth with 1:14 to lose.

With another sprint, I managed to finish the first sector of lap six in exactly 5:00 again, then pretty much hit a wall as I was nearing the end of the second. May have managed to meet the target for that one even so, and I did sprint to try it, but when I realized I’d just manage it at a full sprint for those last few steps and it’d be fake, because I was getting too tired, and it’d cost me more later, I stopped just before getting back out from under the bridge, which is where I check the time for that sector, and the result was losing two seconds compared to the target time. And then, though the thought of somehow managing to recover them over the third sector did cross my mind, since I had more time to lose there compared to my normal time, by the time I completed the lap it was clear I had to just keep putting one foot in front of the other and limit the damage. Lost 26 more seconds in that sector, so 28 seconds over the course of the lap.
Next was that final part, which required me to cross the bridge, which meant climbing up the stairs on one side and down the other. And that truly showed me how much my body was just screaming at me to stop and sit down already, as it felt that each step up was managed pretty much on willpower alone, while going down felt pretty much like a barely controlled fall. Also, the two-minute target for that sector was ambitious to begin with, so I was actually pleasantly surprised when I found myself at the bottom of the stairs and starting what was actually a seventh third sector after only 2:10. And then I just met the updated 7:30 target for that sector as well, leaving me a mere six seconds ahead of the target time before the last, which started with me going up stairs again, to get from the path around the lake to the one leading to the park exit.
However, when I said I was never worried about managing to finish in under two hours, I meant it, and that was because I had set aside a generous three minutes for that final part and it only has about 400 meters, which I knew I’ll manage in no more than 2:30 even with the stairs and in the state I was in. I was so sure of it I also stuck to the original plan of getting to the top of the stairs on one side, then reaching the other side of that wide path and then finishing back on the side I started from, adding a little more to the distance. And, as the end result proves, I knew what I was doing, as I only needed 2:17 for that final sector, adding 43 more seconds to those six.

Getting back after that felt a bit strange, as it was rather difficult to properly control my legs, not to mention my walking speed, but with the exception of the legs I felt surprisingly fine and still do. I didn’t even sleep much today, waking up at 1 PM, so after some seven hours of sleep, which is even stranger when you take into account the fact that yesterday morning I got maybe three and a half at best and then didn’t nap during the evening. My legs will definitely keep reminding me of what I did for a while and I have a slight headache, but other than that, I felt worse after days spent doing pretty much nothing. In fact, I often do.

It doesn’t seem right to write a single review for the whole thing, but the DLCs do make additions that can be used throughout both the original campaign and the Modern Times one as well and only one of them is compatible with the Modern Times timeline, so it’d be difficult to find a proper way to split. Still, the issue isn’t only that my perfectionism is bothered by needing to file it under this edition, which is the only potentially complete one, instead of the GOG one that I played, which is sold as the base game and a separate DLC pack that also includes Modern Times, but even more so the fact that Modern Times is pretty much a different game, not affecting the original campaign or nine of the ten DLC scenarios. If anything, it may even be said that the differences between the base Tropico 4 game and the Modern Times “expansion” are greater than those between Tropico 3 and vanilla Tropico 4.

But I have to start somewhere and the base game is the obvious place, though it’s pretty much only a slightly enhanced Tropico 3. Seeing as I already reviewed that some years ago, this doesn’t leave me with too much to say without repeating myself, but the general idea is that if you liked that game and are content with simply more Tropico, which is true in my case, you’ll probably like this one as well. And if you didn’t play Tropico 3 but find the genre and the style appealing, Tropico 4 is a good place to start. On the other hand, if you didn’t like Tropico 3 or felt that it was quite enough in itself and expect something different, you won’t find what you’re looking for here.
Quite frankly, I could simply copy the third and fourth paragraphs of my Tropico 3 review and they’d fit perfectly well here as well, though it should probably be said that, while there are still a whole slew of factors to be taken into account and some lessons to learn for those willing to notice, Tropico 4 is, if anything, even more lighthearted and over the top. Perhaps too much so at times, but overall it works well and the way in which matters are presented to you by the various characters, with texts and voices that are so outrageously stereotypical that they move past cliché and loop back to being at least passably amusing, serves to turn what would otherwise be a realistic feeling of doom and gloom into consistent fun, once again stressing that it’s just a game and its purpose is to entertain. Plus, I find Penultimo and Sunny to be much more appropriate radio hosts than Juanito and Betty.
The various elements usually work well together and are mostly intuitive, the fact that each trait now has five levels and increases by one whenever you win a scenario with it active is interesting, while the objectives are also quite varied, not allowing the player to get bored over the course of the game, and at times they may even surprise, considering the limitations that the available gameplay elements would appear to impose. While the early years of most scenarios are still too similar, there are even a few that start slightly differently, giving an impression that the developers at least considered doing something about what was one of my main complaints about Tropico 3.

Under these circumstances, the main issue of the base game are just those limitations mentioned above, scenarios quite often being interesting in spite of the available gameplay elements and not thanks to them. There’s a constant impression that scenario creators wanted more this time around and struggled to get as close to their vision as they could with the tools that were available, the result often being a somewhat awkward approximation which, while not out of place in a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously, still kept making me wonder why wasn’t a little more effort put into making the changes and additions that’d have provided them with the tools they needed, especially since sometimes it’s a matter of very minor changes.
But while I’m on the topic of scenarios, I definitely missed the approach used in the original Tropico 3 campaign, where you tended to have a clear long-term primary goal to work towards and freedom to choose how to reach it and what else to do in between. In Tropico 4, the approach is similar to that used in Tropico 3: Absolute Power, though perhaps not quite as stressful. You usually still have time to breathe and can most of the time delay meeting a goal long enough to prepare for whatever’s next, but what you get are multiple goals that usually need to be met in order, with unclear consequences or at times unclear in themselves, and sometimes they’re timed as well.
Otherwise, I keep looking at my Tropico 3 review and keep thinking I could pretty much copy it here, this time when it comes to the negative aspects as well. Are the first few years of scenarios still tedious due to being pretty much the same every time? With just a few small exceptions noted above, yes they are. Are the music and radio broadcasts still very repetitive? Yes, and no matter how fitting they are you’ll still roll your eyes and sigh at some point. Do characters still get out of cars some distance away from their destination and then walk the rest of the way, do they still sometimes choose an entrance that’s not the closest to the road, and do they still insist on causing gridlocks by crowding on one road when almost empty alternate routes are available? Oh yes! Has public transportation been added? Only in Modern Times, and only one type. Can you now at least build roads with more lanes? No. Has a terrain leveling tool been added? Again, no. Are entrances more clearly marked on blueprints? Not unless they’re access roads. Can you now see exactly why a protester’s protesting? No, you still can’t.
And I still feel the need for more information and control. For example, you can fire a person, but not hire them in a certain job. Or you can’t see what the range of any building that has one is. But this is most notable when it comes to goods, where I’d want to know what’s the maximum quantity of materials a factory can store or sometimes, especially when I have a goal to track, exactly what’s ready to export in a dock instead of simply the total number of units and value. I’d also want to be able to send food to be exported instead of having all marketplaces and supermarkets fill their storage space first, or to stop exports of certain products, which only seems to work for oil products because the refineries have such a setting while no other buildings do and on the trade page you can only stop imports… Which I’d also want to be able to control better, for example in case of factories that may use multiple materials.
I’m also not keen on the concept of ministers. Having all edicts except the general ones locked until you build a ministry building and hire a minister for that particular category may make the early years of many scenarios trickier, and then once you do hire them they don’t seem to do much. Once in a while there may be a gaffe, which will have negative consequences unless you fire the minister in question, or sometimes even if you do, while on the other hand one or two bonuses may at other times be offered by a minister with sufficiently high attributes, but it’s too little and definitely too random. Plus that only being offered a maximum of three citizens to choose from for such a position, no matter how many would actually be qualified for it, definitely feels like you may at least sometimes miss out on better candidates.

Now that I got through the original campaign and the general aspects affecting the entire package, let me move on to what’s specific to Modern Times and say I quite like the concept of the timeline in itself. Having buildings become available at certain times makes sense and is something quite normal and expected for a game of this genre covering a significant period of time, so it may be said that it was lacking before, even if the game managed just fine without it. Also, while the effects and even the implementation may be a mixed bag, I’d say the concept of major international events affecting Tropico is at least a decent addition as well.
Back to the new buildings, most are useful and powerful. They’re also more expensive, larger and the later ones also require a fair amount of power, but you’ll definitely want to use many of them once you’ll see their benefits. I mean, modern housing is far better than the older kind, organic ranches produce all three types of ranch products in large quantities, solar power plants generate large amounts of clean electricity regardless of where they’re placed, metro stations finally bring public transportation into the game and solve traffic problems if placed right, car factories generate huge profits and so on.

What’s wrong is that most of those new buildings aren’t additions, but replacements. And no, I won’t take the mod somebody released to fix this issue into account, because this is about the actual game, where as soon as one of those replacement buildings becomes available, the old one can no longer be built, nor can any existing one that gets destroyed be rebuilt. Considering the larger sizes in some cases, this means you may end up being unable to have a needed building type in an area anymore.
For some, such as fish farms, organic ranches, modern housing, water treatment plants or aerodromes, it works out well in terms of gameplay, as long as you can afford the higher initial cost and the power requirements, though even then some may want islands that look a certain way and prefer the old buildings for that reason. In other cases, however, this replacement can cause problems, and I’m thinking for example of bio farms, which may produce higher yields but unless they’re in the corn mode require good conditions for three different crops in one location to be efficient, or national banks, which can’t be squeezed into as small a space as the old model and can create an odd situation when set on urban development, as each will reduce building costs by up to 28% instead of 20% but the maximum is still 60%, so you’ll have to either stick to two and only go up to 56% or still build three but end up using them very inefficiently. And, on a different note, why exactly can you only have one telecom building if it has a limited range?
Past this, the scenarios themselves are even sillier but more stressful, so both less fun and less serious. And it’s also odd to see all the new edicts in a separate category instead of being split among the existing ones, as they could definitely fit in there. Also rather odd that they don’t require ministers. But a bigger problem is perhaps that it may be hard to determine their exact effects, as for example the one time I used the fertilize edict I couldn’t really tell right away whether it did anything. Combine that with the fact that they’re expensive and in some cases clearly unethical, and it means I generally tended to stay away from them.
And there are also bugs, albeit nothing game-breaking. While this doesn’t mean they didn’t exist, I didn’t notice anything except some text issues while playing the original campaign, but odd things happened from the first Modern Times scenario, when I was given the option to directly upgrade marketplaces to supermarkets once these became available but one marketplace didn’t upgrade automatically, probably because there was no room. Didn’t crash the game, but it was strange, especially since that’s the only time you’re given the option to automatically upgrade, other replacements at most prompting an optional objective to demolish all buildings of the old type and then build a certain number of the new type. Also, I noticed right away that the work mode supposed to make fish farms generate money didn’t seem to work at all, so I didn’t try to use it anymore, though now that I looked it up I saw it should work if you set, or re-set, that mode after the building is built and has employees. And I’ll also consider it a bug that communists in Modern Times demand sanatoriums, which charge for health care that’s worse than what hospitals offer citizens for free. And there may be others as well, but I didn’t notice them, or at least don’t remember.

To finally get to the DLCs as well, I have to say they’d have made a good expansion if they’d have been released as one and they bring their additions to the entire game, unlike Modern Times. At least some of the new traits may also be useful in the campaigns, and the same goes for some of the buildings. Most likely have too specific uses to be given much consideration outside the scenario that requires them, but you will want to have cement factories pretty much anywhere, plantations on islands with good conditions for cash crops and bunkers whenever you need additional soldiers. And the added scenarios are decent enough as well.

The first big problem I have with the DLCs, however, is the very fact that they were released as individual bits of content. While less ambitious than Modern Times, they’re better implemented and therefore I’d say they’d have made the better expansion if released together as one, though it is odd that only one makes use of Modern Times. Either way, they only became worthy of being taken into account once they became available as a package and I’ll keep holding the initial release model against the developer and publisher, especially since they stuck to it for Tropico 5 as well.
There are also bugs though, including the fact that the witch doctor trait is supposed to lower the respect of the religious faction, which makes perfect sense, but instead raises it, and I’m quite sure that’s not the only such case, but it’s the one I remember now. Much worse, however, is the fact that the same Voodoo DLC brought the one game-breaking bug I stumbled into, that map offering no usable terrain high enough for wind turbines to produce anywhere near the maximum power and the best to be found, relatively speaking, being on the edge of a high lake, where you may just manage to fit a few if you’re really careful. However, depending on exactly where you place them, the water level may suddenly rise to the level of the lake, though it won’t actually display as such unless you save and then load that save, otherwise appearing that ships suddenly start flying and you can’t build anything anymore for no obvious reason, the only fix being to reload an earlier save or, lacking one, to restart. Now that’s likely a general problem with the game, but I didn’t experience it on any other map and not sure which others, if any, have spots which may trigger it.

When everything’s said and done, the complete Tropico 4 package is basically just more Tropico, but still makes for an enjoyable game, though I could have probably done without Modern Times in its current form. Like the concept of the timeline, but not the way it was implemented, and also not keen on the increased silliness and stress levels brought by that campaign. And speaking of which, the original campaign may have perhaps taken itself a little more seriously as well, the multiple references were a mixed bag, and I’d have still preferred the original Tropico 3 campaign approach, with clear long-term goals and freedom to choose how to reach them and what to do in between, but it was definitely enjoyable even so. And on top of including decent additional scenarios, the cement factories, plantations, bunkers and some of the traits added by DLCs improved the entire game, so it can easily be said that the DLCs were a good addition as well when taken as a whole. But only then.

Since the previous post covered only Saturday’s planting, I’ll actually be starting this one with last Thursday, when I went to have a look at a book fair. Only saw something stating that it was taking place those days the night before and decided to just check it off the list, going there without planning or being able to buy anything, as I didn’t have money on me.
May have actually spent more time trying to find it than looking at what was there, since the location had changed from previous years and I remembered the floor wrong, so looked all over the one I thought it was on and then, after turning around along with a few others who seemed to also be searching for it when we reached a wall, went back down while they seemed to have figured it out, since they went up. Worse, though I could have left by the same door I entered that shopping center through, since I had spotted something advertising the fair when going in, I left by another and then went in the other direction, going all around before finally making my way back to that first door and getting the right information. But that was the idea, sort of, since I knew I was only going to glance very quickly at a few things and, after walking there, didn’t care to just walk right back after only a few minutes.

Moving on to Saturday, since we were back in Bucharest so early, I decided to have a look at another fair then instead of Sunday. This one is focused on science fiction and fantasy, also including comic books, board games and a few other things, but I was only interested in the actual books, so it probably took me even less to have a look, since few publishers and shops take part. May have been one more publisher than last year, when I first heard of this fair, not sure, but this on-line bookstore I usually buy from also attended this year, so I’d have probably found the books I recently bought from them cheaper there, but I didn’t know they’ll attend at the time. One of the activists was once again there as well, after first bumping into him last year, since he has older books to sell, among other things.
Got there with slightly less trouble than I thought I’ll have though, since they had also changed their location and I hadn’t even tried to memorize the address, assuming we’ll be back in Bucharest too late and I’ll be too tired. But I did remember the metro station I should get off at and then thought I recalled the street it was on, so I simply kept walking on it until I finally found the place. The actual fair was on the fourth floor, but there was a sign on the door and then sheets of paper stating the floor you were on and that you still had a little to go until the fourth as you went up the stairs. And then I even managed to cut through the city reasonably well and reach the metro stop that’s one away from mine on foot, which was something I recall trying once before and getting all confused.

Monday I ran again, and this is pretty much planned as my last run on the usual route and focused on speed for quite some time, so I meant to smash the record. And, in spite of Saturday’s effort and lack of sleep and my rear end acting up again just before leaving for that run, I definitely managed that, the total time being 19:51, so 30 seconds better. New records for the second and third intermediate times as well, 9:27 and 15:12, respectively, so beating the previous ones by 17 or 18 and 32 or 33 seconds, respectively, since I was saying I may have gotten a bit confused then. The record of 4:18 at the first intermediate point remains, however, as Monday I got there in 4:27.
Then, in spite of quite a lot more blood when I had to go again Monday night and a little more again today after waking up, I stuck to my plan and ran again today, this time covering two laps, so about 6.4 kilometers. The target was 35 minutes, but I managed 33:37 without exactly tiring myself, as I kept my pace quite well in check. Since I remember all intermediate times as well, those were 4:50, 10:34, 17:09, 22:03 and 27:31, respectively, meaning that I covered the second lap in 16:28. Now I’m expecting my rear end will be even less happy with it, since effort doesn’t exactly help with healing and I took somewhat less care lately anyway, which is probably why it happened in the first place, but I’m accepting those consequences at the moment and plan a particularly long run next week, depending on the weather and how I’ll feel.

And this evening I managed to finish Flight of the Amazon Queen as well, so at least I have a second separate game finished this year. Tend to count it as third, since I consider Tropico 4: Complete DLC Pack as the second, since it contains a total of 22 missions, and the original Tropico 4 campaign with its 20 missions as the first, but the point is that I added something else to that list. And I checked a guide less than I thought I will, despite just wanting to rush through it.

Was getting worried as the day approached, or more exactly I was getting even more worried. That was because the organizers insisted on using the phone and, while they no longer tried to call me after I didn’t answer those first two times and then also complained about them doing this instead of sending e-mails and posting the information on the event and the page, their answer for those who posted any questions was to tell them to call the one in charge of this action. In addition, there was still that message posted on the event, asking people to send their names and how many others they’ll come with until March 30, while the last SMS sent to those who had signed up also mentioned something about confirming, though it was unclear from where I was standing.
One other person complained particularly harshly about the fact that they don’t send e-mails with the information and they definitely didn’t hold back when they replied either, so it got ugly, and I for one got no reply whatsoever when I asked what that post on the event was actually about and who’re the ones who need to send their names. Only got a rather angry reply when I sent a message with the same question to the one in charge of this action, being told that’s about the cards with names that will be tied to some of the trees that will be planted, as if that was obvious and not referring to something that wasn’t mentioned on the event or page before and therefore likely only known to those who talked to them on the phone. Also, when I asked whether we should still bring tools if we can, as they initially said they didn’t know how many they’ll have, and also exactly how much the transportation will cost, since a post on the page mentioned they’ll cover half the costs for those who’ll use the buses, the reply was that if I signed up in time I should be getting an SMS with all the information.
Yes, I did get an SMS, but it said nothing about either of those things, though a message was later posted on the event, stating that tools are no longer a problem. A message posted on the page also mentioned that water will be provided, though they initially said they won’t be able to provide any food or water and that actually proved to be the case in the end, so that part of this last message was wrong. What was right in it was that the transportation was to be provided by the authorities, but that part wasn’t exactly clear and contradicted the earlier message asking volunteers to bring a little money to cover their half of the fare, without stating exactly how much that will be, so it was quite unclear for me.

Having those things to worry about, even to the point of wondering whether they won’t simply turn me away if I didn’t call or send an SMS to confirm something I perhaps needed to, on top of being afraid of being around people in itself, meant I didn’t sleep at all before leaving. Slept like a log on Thursday, only waking up around 4 PM and therefore making up for the previous lack of sleep, and then also well enough Friday morning, waking up a few times but largely resting quite well until I got up after 2 PM, but only managed to nap for about one more hour Friday evening, despite stubbornly staying in bed for some two and a half hours and then pacing around the room for another 40 minutes or so. And then, like I said, Saturday morning I didn’t sleep at all, hoping to at least manage to fall asleep around 6 AM and therefore get a very brief nap but still being wide awake when my alarm rang, at 6:15 AM, after I spent about an hour tossing and turning.
As it turned out, I may have been able to spend another half an hour in bed, and possibly even longer. We were told that the bus will leave at 8 AM and asked to be there 15 to 20 minutes earlier, so I arrived around 7:40 AM and was in that first bus, which arrived around 7:50 AM, by 8 AM, but then I just waited along with all the others for the second, which was late. In fact the first bus finally left on its own, shortly before 8:25 AM, leaving what at the time I counted as 28 people to wait for the second, whenever that finally decided to show up. And not long after that, after we got out of Bucharest, we stopped for around ten minutes, the driver saying he had to switch with the other, though I never paid attention to see whether that actually happened.

When we finally got to the edge of the forest we were to plant in, a number of cars were already there and more joined later, along with the second bus. Not known to at least most of us at the time, a third bus was to come as well, and I think a couple of smaller ones as well, at least some of those filled with school children and a few adults who were probably their teachers, who sort of simply showed up as we were starting to actually plant. In the end, we were told that the number of volunteers was a bit over the 300 that were considered as needed for the day’s schedule, but it was also obvious that we worked far faster than they expected, as the schedule mentioned we should finish around 5 PM and instead we were done around 12 PM, with only a small number, made up mostly of those who didn’t seem to care to plant in the first place, complaining that they were tired, many of the rest wondering whether there wasn’t some other area nearby where we could continue, since we still had so much time left. And we were actually told there was, but that it was to be left for some other time… Even though the buses were obviously not ready for us to leave so soon, so we may have left even at 12:30 PM, then were called back outside for some group pictures, got back in around 12:45 PM, yet then had to simply sit there and wait until 1:30 PM, when we finally left.
But since I got a bit ahead of myself, let me go back and say nobody knew exactly what to do or where to go at first and I was glad I had more clothes with me, as the wind and the fact that we were between a forest and a lake made it quite cold and everybody started shivering when we got off the bus. Many even returned inside when nothing seemed to be happening right away, but eventually the foresters who were there to guide and help us simply walked away, taking a path that cut through the forest, and the rest of us followed in groups. Or, more exactly, a small group followed them, a second group followed the first and so on, without anybody having been told that we were leaving. I even heard somebody at one point, when I stopped to take a picture and therefore allowed another group to catch up to me, asking whether anyone was sure we were heading in the right direction and not simply following somebody who had wandered into the forest to pee and has since been trying to shake the rest of us off to be able to do so.
Still, we eventually arrived to the right place, finding the piles of saplings to be planted and a large number of tools to use. And we also found that the holes had already been dug, apparently in order to ensure that the rows will be straight and the trees spaced correctly. We were told those had been dug some time ago, so we may have to clear out some earth and other stuff that fell back in and also break up the earth that was dug out before pulling it back in around the roots of the sapling, but there definitely was far less work than we assumed there will be. Since this was likely known to the organizers, don’t think it means we didn’t work that much faster than expected though.
Remains to be seen how well we worked, however, and while some clearly knew what they were doing, I have to say I didn’t like some of what I saw when I happened to walk back to grab some more saplings. Not that I’m too happy with what I did early on either, as we were told to work in pairs but I obviously wasn’t going to interact with someone enough to look for a pair and then keep working together, so I did what I could on my own and it took a while before I figured out how to get it right. Think I did well enough once that happened though, despite feeling a need to work as quickly as possible because everyone else seemed to be doing the same, and I also tried to fix things in a few places where I spotted something obviously wrong in what others had done.

In what was posted both before and after, it was said that 10000 trees were to be planted, but that doesn’t sound quite right to me. While there I was actually thinking it may have only been around 3000 or even less, though later I changed that estimate to at least 5000. Still highly doubt it was 10000 though, but there were quite a few piles left at the end, so that may be the number of saplings that had been brought, to make sure there will be enough in case of losses and people damaging some or leaving them along the way, hard to find for others who’d need more.
As for how many of those saplings will actually grow into proper trees, the foresters said that losing 25% while planting is normal, and that when working with volunteers they’re happy if they lose 30% or even 35%, so that was likely why the holes seemed to have mostly been dug in pairs, so at least one of the two will actually grow. And they were walking around while we were planting, occasionally offering advice, helping or fixing something, and I’m quite sure they checked more carefully after we left, fixing even more and also planting in the few holes that happened to remain empty, when volunteers moved on before quite finishing an area, probably due to more of them meaning to move to a certain hole and then all walking away more or less at the same time, assuming the others will handle it. Not sure how much even the foresters will notice and fix any cases where the wrong type of tree may have been planted though, as we had oak, cherry plum and ash and were supposed to stick to certain types for certain rows, but after those who asked were given the right type at the start of a row, later on people may have gotten confused, plus that much of the time those who ran out of saplings walked back only to the first pile they found on their row, therefore relying on the fact that somebody else had brought the correct type.

Still, I think it went well enough overall, and as far as I’m concerned I finally did something I’ve been meaning to do for quite some time, took some pictures and managed it all without really needing to interact with the others. Then again, except one of the organizers and the person who eventually ended up sitting next to me on the bus, who was the one I clearly knew from many past events and actions but who didn’t try to make conversation either, I only rather vaguely recognized three or four more faces. On the one hand, that was disappointing, since I hoped to see more of the activists I know taking part in what seems to be the only such action organized anywhere near Bucharest this spring, but on the other it definitely made it easier to pretty much ignore and be ignored by everybody. And doing this without sleeping before probably helped as well, as I likely analyzed things less than usual and therefore also worried about them less than usual.