Hitchhiking XIX (Edirne - Istanbul)

After a very short but very "productive" day in beautiful Edirne I followed my bad feeling about my Couchsurfing host and decided to take a bus to Istanbul. One reason was that the highway was quite far away and definitely not reachable by foot, but I guess I was just being lazy about this very last distance I had to cover. Plus: once in Istanbul, I would probably be totally lost in spite of my beloved offline map.

So I got a free (!) bus from the center of Edirne to the central bus station, which turned out not to be "central" at all, but just at the beginning of the highway! So in no time I changed plans again, passed the bus I was supposed to get, and walked towards the highway. YOLO.

A closer look to the map revealed that this was not the actual highway yet, but a road leading to the highway for around 3 kilometers. I started walking, occasionally turning around when cars were approaching. 

A truck stopped after no time, but was going back to Bulgaria. I still hopped in because he would drive until the junction anyway - sweet luxury. 

After I had passed the toll stations, I didn't even put my bags down, confident that someone would stop very soon. 10 minutes later a car with a Bulgarian license plate stopped, but Memo was originally from a village around Istanbul and had worked and lived in Vorarlberg for more than 30 years. He ended up inviting me to his home in said village, where I met his wife and daughter, and talked to his 22-years-old son on the phone while having coffee. 

Then his daughter brought me to a bus stop nearby, honking at the bus - which then actually stayed and waited for me! I then drove through the westernmost suburbs of Istanbul for more than an hour, until boarding the metro and finally arriving at my friend Mirjam's place.

And this is the end of the hitchhiking for this trip - can you believe it?