minsk, 3 c, and why i’m writing this at 2am

i don’t even know where to start. it’s 3 a.m. here, which is weird because 3 a.m. feels like a warm hug in most places. but here? median. i just checked and it’s again 3 c. 3 c. 3 c. maybe your body starts to forget real math. or maybe the city does. i’m not sure.





i walked out the door and immediately realized the air is this clingy 75% humidity hug. it’s not cold, per se. it’s lukewarm. like someone left a soup can on the stove. which is fine. i’m into lukewarm. it’s what my skin is doing. anyway, someone said to me today that the weather here is like a conspiracy. like the city is trying to make you question your life choices. i don’t know. i’m questioning mine already.





i passed a street artist painting a pigeon on a dumpster. the pigeon was mid-squawk. i asked what the pigeon was. they said it was a protest. i laughed. they didn’t. the artist said it’s called ‘symbolic rebirth.’ i’m not sure if that’s true or if they just wanted to sound profound.






i feel like this quote needs to be in a blockquote so we can separate it from the chaos. here it is: "the pigeon is a citizen now. they pay taxes in tiny bites." i don’t know if this is true. but it felt like it should be.














so let’s talk about the daily grind. yes, there’s a market. yes, there’s a $0.50 bike rental. yes, there’s a coffee place where the barista stares at you like you’re a tourist who forgot to tip last year. *leunovsky coffee is good. really good. burned taste. bold. like it needs to be. leonid street* is where everyone argues about nothing. i saw two guys debating whether the mailman is a spy. i walked by. they didn’t notice me. i hope.













i heard that the public library here is haunted. not by ghosts. by the smell of old books. 75% humidity + ancient tomes = a sauna for your brain. someone whispered to me outside it that the librarian gives free tea to people who ask the right questions. i asked about ghosts. she handed me a bag of sugar. said it was for my courage.













if you get bored, obry is just a short drive away. i heard that some cafes there are haunted. maybe. i don’t know. i passed one called 'cafe of whispers' and a guy in a suspiciously old coat told me not to drink the coffee. i didn’t.














links: [[tripadvisor minsk hotels]](https://www.tripadvisor.com/New-Hotels-Without-Also-On-Tripadvisor-Minsk-Belarus) [[yelp hospital]]('https://www.yelp.com/biz/central-clinical-hospital-minsk) and a random blog about non-scalable urban art












img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1702295155899-825361812277?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&w=1080&q=80" alt="a white church with two towers and a cross on top of it" width="100%")












i stood in front of a mural today. it was of a man dancing with a toaster. i asked the artist why. they said it represented "rawness in a sterile world." i don’t know what that means. but i bought a postcard of it. it has a cat wearing sunglasses.












in short: it’s 3 c, 75% humidity, and a city that makes you question everything. including why you took the 2 a.m. train. did you? i sure did.

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