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.
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| 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.
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| 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! 
