That was the longest subway ride ever. Have you ever stayed awake for about 50 hours straight? It’s an unreal feeling. Especially in such a sleepy place as the subway. As soon as I closed my eyes for a second, my brain would shut down, my legs would give way, and just as I started to fall, I’d realize where I was and wake up. This went on for over an hour. From the outside, it must have looked pretty funny =)
After stepping onto the Brighton Beach platform, the thought crossed my mind that this is probably what life looked like in the late 80s and early 90s. Russians everywhere and the smell of a market. Brighton Beach quickly sobered me up, and I started looking for the place whose address I had found online beforehand. After two hours of searching, I found the house, but they hadn't even heard of any hostel there. Damn it! Okay, what other options are there? Surely they have newspapers with room rental ads. And I was right! Half an hour later, I had a thick newspaper in my hands with a bunch of different ads. After calling a dozen apartments, I settled on a place for 12 dollars a night. I was already anticipating how I would sleep. S-l-e-e-p, it’s so wonderful when you haven't slept for a long time.
But before that, I stopped by Starbucks to get online and find the house I needed on the map. And it was in that establishment that another strange encounter took place.
I was standing in line for the restroom, minding my own business, when the guy behind me started talking:
- How everything has changed! When I was here last time, none of this existed – no Starbucks, no McDonald's! How much Brighton has changed!
- Are you not from around here?
- No, I live in Paris and came to visit Brighton. How everything has changed here... And where are you from?
- I'm a tourist. Currently looking for a place to stay the night.
- Oh, if you need a ride anywhere, let me know. I have a car outside!
- Great! You're just in time =)
He seemed like a perfectly adequate, good-natured guy. In principle, that's what he turned out to be, but with his own quirks. While we were driving, it turned out he was the owner of a porn site))) He also places actors in such films. The guy told a simply heart-wrenching story about how he got a friend into the porn business as an actor and about all the difficulties of this profession. I think the blog's censorship wouldn't let the details through))
Pulling up to the place of my future overnight stay, he left his number and warned: “If anything happens, call. All sorts of bad things happen here.” Okay, I hope I won't need the number)
I walk into the house and the first thought in my head is: “ARE YOU KIDDING ME???” First a gay Chinese guy, then a porn business owner, and now I've ended up in some kind of den. Whatever, I want to sleep, and I don't care about the rest.
I paid the set amount, crawled onto some semblance of a bed in the safest corner, covered myself with everything I could, and immediately passed out. Loud music played all night, but it seemed very far away and somewhere deep in my dreams.
In the morning I woke up, left this shelter, took a deep breath of air with pleasure, and headed to my travel companions in Chinatown. They must have been worried about me by now)
