Day 23

After only one full day in Hamburg (which was too short, yes, I know), I continued to another world-known metropole: Lüneburg!
The only reason why I wanted to come here, is the award-winning TV-series Rote Rosen, which I watched regularly for more than one year almost every day. It takes place here in Lüneburg and I always wanted to see all the sets in reality :D

For getting here, I walked back to the highway I had come from the other day. Even though I was kind of under time-pressure because my host in Lüneburg, Julia, had to leave her flat around 1pm, I arrived there at 10:30 - only to realize that this was a stupid and dangerous spot to stop once again!

Hoping for the best I asked all the cars that had to stop at the last traffic light before the highway whether they were going to Hannover. The highway was leading to Hannover and Bremen, but of course, suddenly everone was going to Bremen or leaving the highway after 5 minutes. There were a few cars with a Lüneburg-license plate but ignored me stubbornly. Pah!

But after 30 minutes another Lüneburger car had to stop at the traffic light, so I waved at the driver enthusiastically, holding the Lüneburg-sign in my hands, and he waved back at me, a little bit annoyed, though, and I hopped in. Alexander had just spent a night in the hospital because his one-year-old son Louis had had some health issues, and was now going back to his hometown Lüneburg.
I asked him to drop me off at the train station, thinking that it would be only a stone's throw away from my host Julia's place.. but it wasn't. In the end Julia came too late for university, because I had to walk 3.5 kilometers xD Funny how things surprise me again and again when I think that I researched everything.

Today there won't be any sightseeing for me - my feet are hurting badly and I will have to see the doctor tomorrow. I know he will tell me that the choice of shoes I made was probably the worst one could make, but what can I say.. beauty comes at a price, haha xD

Tomorrow the weather hopefully will be better (it's really raining right now :/ ), so I will have plenty of time to see all of Lüneburg.


And on thursday I will set out for the Fusion Festival - the root of all evil!

A loose acquitance of mine, Boris :D, had once mentioned it and had also told me that he had hitchhiked to said festival the year before. That was when I came to realize the possibility of hitchhiking and began planning this very trip.

Funnily, a lot of people i know already are going there, among them friends of Josie and one couchsurfer from Berlin and one from Dresden. Hope to see them all there, and hope to climb over the fence without being caught and especially hope to not fall down from it, haha! Wish me luck :D

Day 22

Compared to my frustrating experience the day before, the trip from Bremen to Hamburg was quite unspectacular. The only exceptional thing is that I left Sine's flat around 7:15pm, because I really wanted to stay another day, but then remembered that I didn't know if my host in Hamburg would be at home for the whole Monday. The ride from Bremen to Hamburg is only one hour, but still 7:15pm definately was quite late, considering that I had to walk to my chosen spot and then wait for an unknown period of time.

The spot was not too good, the street was not too frequented, and of course most of the cars had a Bremen-license plate and were probably not going on the highway. Still preparing my MP3-Player for the music and not holding up the Hamburg-sign, a car with the HH-license plate came closer slowly, which motivated me to vigorous waving, grining and hopping. And I was successful, because the car finally stopped little behind me and Hubert was already busy cleaning the co-driver's seat for me when I arrived at the car.
Hubert had hitchhiked to Portugal in earlier days and was eager to know everything about my travel experiences. I still dream about him making a story about me, because I later found out that he was a journalist for the Spiegel-magazine. I was too shy to ask him for his contact details, though, so this is probably not going to happen xD

rainbow!

Anyway, he was living close to Othmarschen, where I had to go, so he dropped me off there and I had a really short walk to my host Enderson's place.

Enderson is from Brazil and lives in Hamburg now for one year as an exchange student. His German is really good, but still he reminded me of someone.. can you guess who it is? One hint: Germany's Next Topmodel-watchers will definately know him :D

Day 21

Time flies by!

And so do the cars when you stand at a shitty hitchhiking spot.

That was the case when I tried to get out of Oberhausen again last Saturday after 3 lovely days with my dear Josie and her amazing circle of friends. Oberhausen doesn't have a ring-shaped main road going around the city but only one entrance to the highway, with almost no opportunities to stop safely. At first, I was standing on a road leading to the main road, but half of the cars wasn't even going on the highway, so after 30 minutes I decided to walk further.

Stopping there, just before the highway-entrance to the right, was even more dangerous, but it was the only possiblity. So, I positioned myself directly in front of the entrance with a sign saying "==>", and waited. Smiiiiile!

There also was a traffic light that turned red from time to time, so I asked the people in the cars to pull down their windows, and if they did, where they were going. A lot of people, though, looked at me as if I was ompletely nuts. Especially old people shook their heads at me and then continued looking straight, ignoring my nicely smiling face. But, of course, if people do that, I'm not mad at them, or better don't allow me to be mad - because if I was, my mood would get bad, and that's the last thing I want.

After around 30 minutes, Dennis stopped for me. He was going back to Dortmund and had been to Oberhausen because he commented Wrestling fights in his freetime and there had been some event in the city. I had asked him to drop me at a parking lot, so that I could continue onto the A43, which then would lead onto the A1, but when we arrived there, I immediately saw that almost no car would stop there.
So Dennis dropped me somewhere in the outskirts of Dortmund from where I thought it would be very easy to access the A1.

I wasn't sure about the best position because I again was standing directly in front of the highway-entrance, but also in the middle of a big crossroad. Cars from all directions were entering the highway, the most coming from a bigger road - but the didn't have any possibility to stop safely and  would have had to stand on the road to talk to the drivers. The smaller roads were safer but of course not so frequently used.
Still I decided for on of the smaller roads in the end and tried to talk to the cars that had to stop because of the traffic light. Again I met a lot of unfriendly people and also realized, that most of the friendly people were driving to the center of Dortmund instead of continuing on the A1.

After 45 minutes I aready was quite hopeless and couldn't force myself to a smile all the time anymore. But finally, Julian showed mercy. He was coming from his job in IT security in Dortmund and was going home to Unna now, which was located at the A1.

There he dropped me off close to the IKEA because it was the only safe spot to stop and from where I walked some 10 minutes back to the highway-entrance. Of course, there once again was no stopping-opportunity, not too many cars were coming from the IKEA-direction, and even though I found the first sign of other hitchhikers before me, I decided to walk a little bit further towards Unna.

Most impractically, the loads of cars coming from Unna had tot turn left in order to enter the highway, and there was no space for me to stand there and talk to the waiting drivers. So I continued walking until I came across a bus stop. That one could have been a nice spot but wasn't, because a lot of cars were already using the left lane because they wanted to turn left later.
After 45 minutes of waiting, in which only one car stopped but was going to leave the A1 after 5 minutes, I again walked further towards Unna and stopped at a crossroad. There I waited for another 30 minutes without any car stopping. Really frustrated by now, I finally entered the main road of Unna, hoping to get really all the cars possibly going my direction, but suddenly almost no stupid car came out of this abandoned city anymore.
It was already 6 when I walked back again and sat down in the Burger King by the road and ate a burger. I wrote my host in Bremen that this day was really tough and that I hoped to make it before nightfall. I was almost desperate, because it was not only almost impossible to find a lifter, but because I also still was about 2 hours away from Bremen.

But nevermind, life goes on, at some point I have to find someone - that's what I aways tell myself.
And I even got a free coke at Burger King!

I tried it again at the bus stop, smiling smiling smiling and already thinking about where I could set my tent without anyone bothering me. By the time I had spent 2 hours in godforsaken Unna, the longest waiting time ever.
After another column of cars had passed by, I decided to try it again at the dangerous crossroad, because there no one could lie to me and tell me they wouldn't enter the highway. So I walked back in said direction, holding up my "Bremen"-sign for potentially passing cars half-heartedly.

And a car stopped. Aaaaaah <3
My dear Ayas was inside and on his way to Lübeck which is even further on the A1, so he could take me with him the whole way. He was a Kurd from the North of Irak and had escaped from there with his family in the early 90s during the war, at first to Iran, then to Russia, and finally to Northern Germany. My first fauxpas was to as him if he spoke Turkish, because I thought he was from Turkey, but he forgave me and then I learned alot about the Kurdish people and their history and traditions, and the two hours to Bremen passed by in no time.
Without question he drove me into the city and directly in front of the doorbell of my hosts house. Thank you Ayas <3

The day ended with a very nice dinner at my host Sine's boyfriend Fabian and his flatmates' place and I was really happy to have finally arrived at my destination and to be in such a nice company. I got along with Sine so well and we kept exchanging travel experiences and other stuff all night long.

Day 18

Amsterdam was not so much my thing, but I blame it on my lack of adaptability. I guess when in Amsterdam, you just have to sit in one of the thousands of Coffeeshops and try every single variety of weed and hash it has to offer. I didn't do that, and also didn't want to spend a shit load of money on some one-hour boat-ride or an average museum, so I spent my hours walking and walking and walking once again.
It's definately a nice city where I have to go again - but with some friends and with an even more opened mind ;D

fu!

Anyway, the hitchhiking.
The distance I wanted to cover this day - from Amsterdam to world-known metropolis Oberhausen, where my good friend who I met in Nepal, Josie, lives - was not too big, but the way should still be somewhat onerous.


View Larger Map

I had chosen a, in my opinion, nice spot on a streat leading onto the ring around Amsterdam, which then would lead onto the highway A1. Still I stood there for half an hour, soaked in sweat just like that, and no one stopped. Pah! But in the end I was picked up by Mark in his super posh Saab carbiolet, and I guess this car was worth the wait, haha :D
He had been hitchhiking in his youth as well and was really excited to meet someone like me. Originally I wanted him to drop me off at the next gas station, but our conversation was so nice and I trusted his former hitchhiking-experience, so that he dropped me off at a roadhouse close to Hilversum.

Indeed a lot of cars entered this roadhouse - but almost none left again, and even less stopped for me.
One was only going to Hilversum, and the second one turned out to become my first bad hitchhiking experience:
Smiling as everyone, the guy told me he would continue driving on the A1 and that he could take me with him. Then he asked if I wanted to "make the ride worthwhile". Completely shocked but still smiling I said No, unless he could appreciate a nice conversation while driving. Obviously, that was not what he meant, so I said I would wait for someone else.
In the end he assumed that I would probably get these questions a lot during hitchhiking. But most happily I was able to tell him that he was the first idiot that came up with something like that.

Alrighty then, I decided that this was the sign for me to walk away from the street and to the restaurant, and speak directly to the people entering their cars. And behold, after two rejections, Martin offered to give me a lift to the next gas station. Thanks for saving me from this abandoned place :D

At said gas station called Baarn, I wanted to look for people going onto the A30, which the would end up in the A12, which would bring me directly to the Ruhr District. Again I just walked up to people fuelling up and asked them where they were going. Most of them, of course, where continuing on the A1.

So did Jarno, Thomas and Stefan, who catched my attention as soon as they left their car, wearing the Dutch Army uniforms. They were going to Deventer, which was behind Apeldoorn, but offered to drop me off at a gas station closer to the A30. But, as many of you might now, I'm a bit special when it comes to men in uniforms.. so I stayed with them a little longer than necessary :D In a funny mix of German and English they told me they were or were becoming combat nurses and all had been in Afghanistan with German soldiers already. In the end, they dropped me off at a gas station just before Apeldoorn and the A50, which also ended up in the A12.

oh yeah :D

At this gas station called Lucasgat, I made a short break and ate a cookie while looking for potential lifters. But, within a minute, a nice businessman approached me and asked if I was a Hitchhiker. Indeed I was, and Jan-Hermann, who spoke fluent German because he had worked in Dresden for 6 years, was even going on the A12, yay!

He dropped me off at a gas station just before the German border, where I saw a few German license numbers again for the first time since I had left Germany. The first guy I asked, Jörn from Duisburg, told me that his boss had banned him from taking hitchhikers, but he made an exception for me ;)

He dropped me at the gas station in Hünxe (yes, that's the name), from where I had to look for someone going directly to Oberhausen city. A lot of people were going to Essen or Duisburg, but finally I found a girl who told me she would go to the shopping mall called "CentrO" in Oberhausen. When I asked her if she could give me a lift, she was absolutely and asked: "Are you kidding?"
But I wasn't, haha, and so I hopped in. She was already late so she could only drop me at the CentrO, which is about 3 km away from the actual center. I could've taken a bus of course, but decided to walk. It probably took me one hour and I was again soaked in sweat in the end, because it was like 45°C, but in the end I arrived at the central station and was welcomed by my beloved Josie <3

it was so hot, I mean, SO hot

She's currently doing an internship for an artist's group called "das wettbüro", which organizes live bets every day for two weeks and also bets against the citizens of Oberhausen that go for a longer period of time. For example, someone bet that the artists wouldn't be able to organize an open-air cinema on the parkdeck of a big store until today - which will actually take place at 10pm today.
They live bet for yesterday was to gather at least 20 Oberhauseners to stand on the central station square for minimum 5 minutes in solidarity with the protests in Turkey. In the end there were 35 people standing in total.

Apart from this really cool artist community, the central station was dominated by a drunk mob shouting at each other, which inspired me to this picture:

Peace out, bitches!

Day 16

The sad thing about travelling is that, most of the time, you have to leave people you just met and began to like again too early. So it happened with my lovely Roland and Machteld, who were friends, brother and sister, and mother and father all in one for me during the last few days.

"Ik heb het naar mijn zin!", describes this weekend I spent dancing and dancing and riding the bicycle and dancing again completely - and now you go figure out what it means :D

jup, it was quite windy

The official ceremony in which I presented Roland and Machteld with the smurf I got from Donato, the Italian truck driver, as the award for "the coolest people I meet on my trip", was followed by a heartbreaking goodbye at the boat. At least I had tears in my eyes, boohoo!

thank you for everything <3

The ride to Amsterdam was quite easy, as I met some guys I had seen in front of the stage the day before, and they were going to Amsterdam and took me with them.

Now I'm at my last-minute-host's place, die once again from tiredness while I'm absolutely choked about the fact that a one-hour-ride with the Tram here is 2,80€ and the Tourist Office doesn't offer any free maps. You can buy the cheapest one for 2,50€ - I mean, are you serious?

Looks like someone is going to get lost tomorrow.. but that sounds good to me :D

Day 13

THAT'S what I'm talking about :D

So, when I left Leiden a few days ago heading to Amsterdam, I didn't have any place to stay. The only guy who had given me a positive answer wasn't responding, the people Tony knew didn't have space, and all the hostels were booked out. Still I was sure would find a way and so it came, of course.

I didn't want to walk to the "perfect spot" Tony had showed me on the map and just stopped at one of the bigger streets of Leiden leading out of the city. REALLY after 20 seconds, a car stopped in front of me, broadly grinning Roland and Machteld inside. They were driving North, so Roland told me to hop in.
Soon I found out why their mood was so good: They were driving to the Oerol Festival, which is taking place on a whole island and lasts for 10 days.
Roland has been going there for 9 years in a row now and is really in love with it, so he kept telling me how great and beautiful and amazing and fun everything was. The ticket was only 20 Euros, plus around 30 Euros for the boat that takes you to the island. As I didn't have a place to stay in Amsterdam, I asked them if I could join them - so they called the boat company and asked if they still had seats left. And they did!

Oerol here I come!!
The 40 minutes ride turned into 2 hours, and afterwards we spent another 2 hours on the ship that brought us to the beautiful island Terschelling.

highway connecting two islands

Krokett.. or however you write it - delicious!!

aw my ghoooood

raw fish - amaiiizing :D

the marvellous Green Beach

It's amazing. Amazing, amazing.
Roland and Machteld are amazing company and I owe them so much - they paid my bicycle, my camping fee, about a hundred drinks, and probably a thousand things more I already forgot again. And they brought me here!! Thank you <3


Tomorrow I will leave this beautiful place and (probably) go to Amsterdam - I again don't have a place to stay, but as I just found out, that's when the best things happen.

Day 12

After only one night in Antwerp (it was not very different to the rest of Belgium and it was raining on top), I moved on towards Leiden. Tony, originally from GB, had sent me a request from there and invited me to stay in a squat with him and some other people. That already sounded interesting enough, but he is also organising this amazing project called Vrijplaats Leiden, which you should definately check out.

So, armed with my cardboard saying "R'DAM", I stepped through the door and was only 20 meters away from a street leading onto the Ring that went around Antwerp on the highway.

I stood there for 5 minutes until a car that already had passed by, drove back to pick me up. Alejandro and Tarik didn't see that I wanted to go to Rotterdam and weren't actually going my way, but still drove me directly on the Ring and pointed out the direction of the right highway.

Experience showed, though, that you should never rely on one person's statement, so I asked some pedestriants, which road was leading to the highway to Amsterdam - and everyone was really confused and couldn't really give me an answer. So I continued asking drivers in cars that had to stop for the traffic light, and the second guy  i asked told me that I had to go somewhere else and he would drop me there.

Tony was driving this really fancy car, and after I had hopped in, he told me that he had to gop to a garage first and pick something up, and that he would drive me to the highway afterwards. As if I had a choice i came to the garage with him where he bought some screws or something, I don't know. But I found out that he also had once possessed a Jaguar E-Type, but an open-topped one.

Luckily the garage-thing really didn't take long and Tony dropped me of directly in front of the highway. I stood at the entrance of a construction site, and every single car that passed me was definately going on the right highway, so chances were good.

As you may expect, a chic company car stopped after 5 minutes. The guy inside was Indian and kind of greasy, but well.. it was cold and starting to rain, so who cares xD Hitesh turned to out to be very nice, and it was so funny, because even though he came to the Netherlands 14 years ago, you could still hear the Indian accent in his English. He told me, though, that people in Holland use to think that he was born there, because his Dutch was flawless.
Hitesh went directly to the center of Rotterdam, where I didn't want to go because I had to continue a little bit, so he dropped me off at a closed gas station, which was the last option before he ha dto leavethe highway.

A closed gas station is not the perfect spot of course, so I decided to walk as close to the highway as possible and hope for another street being connected to it. And indeed, there was another entrance with lots of cars entering the highway.

yes, that's the highway - fuck the police xD

After 5 minutes of standing here, a policeman on a bike showed up and of course stopped in front of me. He told me that it was illegal to hitchhike on the highway (oh really? didn't know that...) and that I should go through the high grass you can see behind me on the picture, to get to another street.
I could've stayed there of course, because he eventually drove away, but well, maybe the highway really isn't the best spot. Soooo, instead of simply following the street accessing the highway back to where it came from, I really decided to go through the grass, because I thought it might me the shorter way. HAHA.
In the end I found myself surrounded by nettles and thistles higher than myself and it took me around 10 minutes to get through this nightmare. You can imagine what my beloved trousers look like now.. they definately need a proper washing machine.

But anyway, what is life without a few detours and challenges!

Finally I stood directly in front of the highway-entrance again (if I had followed the road, I would've been there in 2 minutes), and had good hopes, because there was I nice spot to stop and it had started to rain, so drivers tend to feel more guilty. But the rain got heavier and heavier, combined with a nice deal of wind, and all people smiled very nicely at me - and drove along.

I always help myself in these situation with talking to those people and saying things like: "Yeah, you have a nice day as well!", or "I'm sure you went exactly where I want to go, bitch!" Keeps up the mood :D


Buttt in the end, of course, after like 30 minutes, Thijs from Hilversum, a city behind Amsterdam, showed some mercy and stopped for me. Thanks man!

He dropped me a few hundred meters before Leiden, where I only stood for 10 seconds, until the lovely Maartge stopped for me. She lived very close to the Central Station and even offered me to drive me to my final destination, which was not very far from there. We didn't find the way in the end, haha, so she dropped me directly in front of the Tourist Information, where I got myself a map of Leiden.

Then I started my way to the Lange Scheistraat, where I hoped to find Tony - who hadn't answered my last message in which I had asked him if this was the right adress and also hadn't sent me a text message. After two minutes of walking, someone behind me shouted: "Verena?!" - it was Tony and his huge black dog called Marley.
He then told me that he had confused the dates and expected me to arrive in July, not today, haha. As a consequence, because he somehow couldn't reach me on my phone, he had been on his feet for hours and informing everyone he knew to call him, in case they would see a lost backpacker running around in Leiden. But he found me in the end, so everything was fine :D


He took me on a tour throug Leiden and showed me all the places he and his friends ever squatted, including the Vrijplaats in the Middlestegracht. It's a huge building that was a factory once, and now is not squatted anymore but officially used for the Freespace Leiden project. There's still a lot of renovation to do, but the amazing kitchen is finished already, and there are even concerts taking place in the main hall.

main hall guarded by Marley

In the end we arrived at Tony's home, which was a squat once as well, but now the people inside have a contract with the owner. 10 people live here constantly and a lot of people visit every day. It's an amazing atmosphere, and even though if there is no shower in this house, there is a couchsurfer room instead, whis is bigger than my own, haha!

Leiden is lovely as well, I just love rivers.

Luca, my neighbour so to say, took me on another tour through Leiden in the evening and I took pictures of every canal we passed. The most amazing thing, though, happened at the end of the trip, when Luca walked towards a carbage can in front of a bakery and started looking through it. Finally he pulled out a huge plastic bag, opened it and - it was filled with bread, pizza, croissants and other pastries up to the top!

You've probably heard about "dumpster diving" or "skipping" before, but did you think it was so easy?
The bread we found was absolutely fine, and the pastries were delicious. All this food being thrown away, and that was only one bakery in one town! Crazy, really.


Anyway, I could talk about this and all the other amazing things Tony and his friends do and organize forever, but I have to get going. Amsterdam is calling!

Day 11

Hello friends!

As a starter, I have a few impressions of Brussels for you:

never seen something so boring

the impressive "Grote Markt"

lovely Arabic neighbourhood

Nepal-Nostalgia, hello!

this was the center of the Turkish area.. well yes :D

some Royal Palace

a huuuuge fleamarket that takes place EVERY DAY

tired but happy

oh yeah

they must've been on the road quite a while

and that's.. the European Parliament

My 5th day of hitchhiking once again showed me that the right choice about your hitchhiking spot is the key to success: As I was living more or less in the center of Brussels, it was easy to find a street, or in Brussel's case a tunnel, leading out of the city. I decided that it was best to position myself quite a distance before said tunnel, so that the drivers wouldn't be inside of the tunnel with their minds already.

After 20 minutes or so, when I already began doubting my decision, a cab driver, who had just dropped off someone, offered to drive me a bit further down the road to a, as he said, better spot. I turned down his offer to have a coffee together and he dropped me off just at the start of the tunnel at the left side of the street. I asked him wether it was the tunnel to the left that lead out of the city, or the street going on on the right side. He told me it was the street, so I stood there and held up my sign.

After 5 minutes it became clear that it was the tunnel that lead out of the city, and after I asked two people passing by, I was sure that the cab driver probably didn't have the best intentions.

I didn't want to walk all the way back, especially because the spot before hadn't been the best one either. The only option I had was to cross the one-way street and hope that someone would stop for me on the left side. So I did that.. and after 2 minutes of waiting a car pulled over.

The elderly man called Bob, a piano tuner who had a daughter in my age, who just went to Hungary for a few months, was going directly to Antwerp and even dropped me right in front of my host's house. Thank you Bob!!

It was raining a little bit and I was really tired, so I spent some time with Monika, my lovely host, talking about her relationship, and going grocery shopping (finally a normal, big supermarket with normal prices again!). She is from Lithuania, has a 6-year old son called Eddie, and also cares for her little 9-year old brother Faustus. They are lovely children and I admire Monika a lot for how she handles her situation.

Later I went to the city center of Antwerp, but as I missed out the opening hours of the tourist office by 5 minutes and as it was very cloudy, I didn't explore Antwerp too much. Still I'm glad that I came, because I wouldn't have met amazing Monika otherwise :)

Right now I'm looking for a good spot to hitchhike to - no, neither Rotterdam nor Den Haag - Leiden!
That was never planned of course, but I got a couchsurfing invite that sounded really interesting, so I'm going for it.

See ya!

Day 8

I'm very sorry for you guys, but there once again not much to tell.
Heading towards Brussels today, I walked for quite a while all through lovely Gent until I reached the highway. I put my backpack on the ground, held up my sign, and waited.

walking, walking, walking.. and smiling!

After 45 seconds a car pulled over. No joke!!! Life is just too easy sometimes xD


So I got a very nice lift from Daniel, who was born in Bulgaria but grew up in Belgium and studied Directing in Brussels. Of course he spoke English, as everyone else here (even older people) and time flew by.

say hello, Daniel!

He dropped me off in the very center of Brussels and I had quite a walk to do until my hosts neighbourhood. Of course I could've taken the Metro easily, but I kind of have the dream that I will manage to cope with the 120 Euros I took with me, without having to withdraw money from the bank. That's ridiculous of course, but still I want to keep my expenses as low as possible, as a challenge for myself so to say.

Anyway, my host Ale picked me up and even though he's very busy with various exams, he gave me some maps and explained everything I have to know to me. I'm sure I'll have a great time - as always! :)