No time to fret, we would just have to try this. I pulled up at the intercom and ordered, loud, clear and, hopefully, unambiguous: "Fritki - doozhe". A male voice replied: "Doozhe fritki, tak." He got it! Emboldened, I continued: "McNuggets - djevitj". That was Russian for the number 9, but the Polish word had sounded similar enough to me. Yep, he got that one too. To finalize the order, I shouted into the intercom: "saus - curry". Surely that was universal across all languages. A stream of Polish met my ears. Huh? "I think he said: nie mas, probably wants to know if you need anything else", Sonia chimed in. Ah ok. "Njet", I screamed at the microphone. That didn't satisfy him. "Saus. Curry blablabla." Help! I was ready to beat a retreat. "They don't have curry. Just say something else", Sonia urged me on. How come my sister suddenly understands Polish? Meanwhile, "Honey mustard" had appeared on the screen. Ah, a proactive employee. "Honey mustard's fine, da." I agreed. "#£%^&^##," came the answer. ???? "Move to pay", he repeated, this time in English. Yay, my order had gone through. I paid and received the food from a very nice young guy. "Enjoy your meal", he said in flawless English and with a broad smile. Have I mentioned that I love Poland?

 

50 km before the border, the newest stretch of the highway merged into the former country road. There had been no gas station for the last half hour, so we decided to drive into town and fill up. Who knew how the petrol situation might be across the border (spoiler: it's 0.9 euro a litre in Belarus, and there are stations aplenty). We promptly got dragged into a minor traffic gridlock. Back on the main road to the border, now with a full tank of petrol, we were greeted by a sign showing a gas station: "2 km". We burst out laughing. This became somewhat of a meme, because for the next twenty minutes, we passed at least a dozen gas stations, all conveniently located right on the side of the road. Ah well, we weren't on a clock. Or were we?

 

 

 

Shortly before 5 pm, we pulled up at the border. Or rather, we got in line behind the last car, about half a mile before the border. Sonia got behind the wheel, in case the line moved, and I counted off the cars until the barrier: 68 vehicles. Bad news. The good news was that there was a kebab stand crooning Russian love songs. No toilets though, so only slightly less dismal than the Kaliningrad border last year. We settled down for a long wait, and I used the time to update this blog.

 

Around 9 pm, we were allowed inside the Polish border area. Only 12 more cars in front of us, and there were toilets too!

 

At midnight, we finally crossed the bridge over the Bug River. Now for the Belarusian border check. It was going to be an all-nighter after all.