Finally in Minsk

Hi friends!

yes, I'm delayed... many things had to be taken care of before I finally could leave last Fri afternoon. Against my original intention I had to skip my detour to 'my' orphanage in the Ukraine and I also broke my promise (to myself) of not using motorways, stopping wherever there is something interesting to see etc. Instead I took the fastest route to Minsk, via Brno (where I slept around the corner from Villa Tugendhat ,
http://www.tugendhat.eu/de/
alas I couldn't visit due to the mentioned time constraints)  and on to Warsaw where I had a short reunion at Josef Wancer's house. After a delightful early dinner I went on (guided by my GPS through an unpaved one motorhome-width dirt road with no turnaround possibility and swamps left and right) to the main road which got me to the town of Minsk-Masovietski, about 200km before the Belorussian border. After a beer in the pub I had found what I thought was a nice side-street to spend the night, when somebody from across the street came over and asked in good English if I wanted to spend the night in their garden. I was first very surprised but gladly accepted and was promptly invited for a glass of wine and after the second and third one we were friends...
I don't think it will be that way always, but it was exactly what I had hoped for: meeting nice local people.

Sunday morning I left shortly after 7 with anticipation of my crossing into Belarus. To make a real long story short: I arrived at 1000 and left at 1530....! I have no idea why it took so long as when it was my turn they were quite friendly and while I had to run for a few different documents for the temporary importation of the MH and mcycle the customs people were quite friendly. They dubbed my vehicle "Datcha" which I kind of liked.... I arrived abt 8pm in Mnsk where I was met by Ivan Varenitsa from Priorbank who escorted me to the place where I'll stay during this month, a very nice apartment which belongs to the bank. He also helps me with all my registrations and got me a phone and net sim card, in short behaves like a kind of guardian anel... Today I took my Yamaha to the bank and had lunch with those board members in town. The CEO is taking a few days vacation. Minsk is very green especially now in springtime and apart from tomorrow for which the forecast is bad the next days should be quite pleasant. The rest of today I spent shopping for some supplements for my place, the car and foodstuffs etc. Tomorrow I should get registered and mybe even start my language training.... stay tuned....