Brest was the tits*. It was an absolutely fantastic place to be. I actually was terrified when I arrived because everything felt so foreign and mysterious. I needed to borrow a cell phone, because I refuse to travel with one, and I asked some guy who was changing, like, $1 million into Roubles (he had stacks and stacks of cash). Despite being a bit of a mafioso, he was readily willing to help. I contacted my couch surfing host, then followed the instructions on how to get to his flat, which involved a series of buses through the city.
Just imagine my delight at being on a bus in Belarus. It was amazing. The buses were so well kept. Built in the Soviet Union, but freshly painted and so well kept. I bought my ticket, which was like 0.0001 cents, and then sat down, giddy with excitement. I realized I should validate my ticket so I jumped up to do so and at that moment two women boarded the bus with armbands looking to inspect the tickets. Luckily I had validated in time but the man in the back had not (nor had he bought a ticket, which is actually more important in this case). The two woman started screaming at him, and he would not budge or care. Then the bus driver started hollering at the women that he had a schedule to maintain and they had to go. So…no one really won there. Except the man who evaded paying the fare, but did not evade public scrutiny.
In any case I then arrived at the correct stop for Douba's apartment (Douba being my couch surfing host, who was from Nigeria. So yes, I know what you're thinking, and yes, he was the only Nigerian man in all of Belarus) but as all of the blocks of apartments looked alike, I had to ask a group of well-behaved teenagers if they could call him to come greet me or at least give instructions. Not ever having encountered a dirty English-speaker before, they were naturally amused and couldn't wait to throw together all available resources to deliver me to the correct address, which they did. At the flat there was a Polish man and his daughter, some local free-thinkers, and I think another foreigner. It was a huge party, and we drank Moldovan wine and ate delicious zakusky. It was a fantastic welcome and I remembered how much I love being part of the post-Soviet intelligentsia. I live for it.
The next day Douba showed me around the city and we went to the ethnographic museum where I learned that when they drew the line between the Soviet Union and Poland after the Second World War, they just went to villages and asked people what language they spoke, and whichever was selected, they either were part of the SU or Poland. Or some such system of classification was employed. And then we saw the outrageous war memorial which is the largest concrete sculpture I have ever seen, and the old fortress and then I was put on a train headed East to the capital of Minsk.
*Is this a saying??? I remember watching "The Girl Next Door" in 2004 and some guy in it says, "Oh yeah, this guy's the tits!" in a positive way and then my roommate always said that about everything, so I just assumed it was a saying. Obviously it's a highly inappropriate saying, but I at least want to make sure it's apropos.
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