Final Two Hours in Minsk

There's something calming about Minsk. I mean, save for the whole totalitarian feel to the place, it is actually kinda nice here. No one's really smiling or laughing or getting too out of control but I so appreciate the orderliness of the whole place. Trains really do seem to run on time here and there are no rogue social elements that make a place like, say, Moscow, unpredictable, chaotic. And fun.

I guess my final verdict on Minsk is that it is, well, kind of boring, especially in comparison to other ex-Soviet metropolises I have visited, like Moscow, Kiev or Odessa. The kids, for example, congregate at McDonald's, as if it's the cool place to be. Interestingly enough, the drive-thru version here is, you guessed it, McDrive. And I see from the window that they offer the MacFresh, the vegetarian verion of their Big Mac or something. Quite honestly I have not had the nerve to fight the crowds to try one out and I prefer to use the place as god intended, as a non-pay toilet.

Though very few people here speak English, I see it constantly. The cool threads for male younglings to don are T-shirts emblazoned with something in "American" -- it doesn't really matter what it says. It is rather odd to walk by and see hipsters with "PepBoys" or "Lancaster, PA High School Track & Field" or "Louisiana is for Lovers" or any number of random T-shirts that would amount to junk to Americans. Of course the women wear high heels and very short skirts *everywhere*, something that I keep wishing would catch on in the USA.

In two hours, and with some trepidation, I climb aboard the train to Moscow, a skant 11 hour train ride away. I've been told that there is no border patrol or customs between Belarus and the Russian Federation, so I might, perhaps, be able to sleep all the way through. Wait, did I just write that? And as Belarus goes the way of Burma in becoming pariah of the world (due to extensive pressuring by both the European Union and the United States, in light of its poor human rights record and habit of disappearing independently minded journalists), I realize that I'll almost certainly never visit this quaint town again (unless called upon by Condi Rice to do so).

And now I leave you with a McDrive menu, in preparation for your next trip to Minsk.