As my hitchhiking prowess and experience has been increasing since I began in February, I've been also hitching increasingly farther distances. This past trip to Paris was by a long shot my farthest: just over 1,000km, compared to my second longest, Munich to Cologne (600km). Add to that the fact that I was to meet my mother at the Charles de Gaulle Airport outside of Paris two days after I began my journey, and things start to get interesting. For if I for some reason unable to meet my mother there....well, who knows what would have happened. But I may not be typing this right now...
Anyway, with such a long trip I had a lot of firsts. First hitch from a trucker, first hitch at night, first time getting stranded miles from a viable hitching spot, having then to walk for a couple hours before finding one. But enough lead-in. I'll just tell you what happened!
The journey began last Friday morning, bright and early at 8am, when I left William's apartment in Berlin to take the public transit to the hitching spot, the rest stop Michendorf well south of town. It takes a while to get there, since Berlin is a massive city by area, so it wasn't until 9:45 or so till I was there and looking for a hitch. That morning passed pretty uneventfully, cloudy and chilly, without many cars stopping to refill their tank or take a break from the Autobahn. I was feeling quite anxious about whether I'd make it the whole way to Paris, and whether I'd have to sleep randomly somewhere outside (not that I wasn't prepared both physically and mentally--I had my sleeping bag and was fully expecting the day to end that way), and so wasn't at all encouraged by the sparsity of drivers. Because of this, I was shier than usual, ruling out certain cars before I could know for certain that they wouldn't take me. You see, the type of people who usual pick up hitchers are men driving alone, so when I see a family or women, I tend not to ask out of common sense. But this day I was being overly cautious. After seeing one car pull up around 11:00am which appeared to be a couple with a teenage son, I immediately ruled them out. But then when the 'father' and 'son' got out, I decided to ask the 'son' just for fuck's sake. To my surprise, he seemed obliging, but wanted to defer the final decision to the 'father,' who, upon being asked once he joined our conversation, simply laughed. When he saw me standing there with my guitar and hiker's bag, he knew I was going to ask, and was waiting until I did! What was more, he was heading to Limburg, a small city between Frankfurt and Cologne---a good 500km away, about halfway to Paris in one go! So we shifted the luggage in his car, piled in, and headed for Limburg.
Not only was it an incredible feeling to get a ride from people I thought surely wouldn't be able to take me, but they were also an interesting bunch. The 'father' and 'son', who actually were old enough to fit their respective roles, turned out to be just friends, while the 'mother' was a thirty-something Vietnamese guy who didn't speak German (in my defense, he was lying down when the car pulled up, and I couldn't see his face!). They were all making a pilgrimage of sorts to see the 'Holy Mother'/'Lebendiger Gott '(living god), some self-proclaimed Indian prophet who had ended her world travels in Limburg, feeling that the energy in Germany was just perfect for the kind of spiritualism or whatever she was looking for. They deferred most of my questions about her and what they were doing to a book about her that they handed me, that just confused me even more. So I just shrugged my shoulders, pretended to understand, and had a lovely conversation with them about other random topics. Since I had only slept four hours the night before in my usual last-minute packing ritual, I soon nodded off with the other passengers, getting some much-needed zzzzs along the five-hour ride.
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| The Limbuger Dom, from a bridge over the Lahn |
After discussing with the driver about where would be best to drop me off, I opted for the city of Limburg itself instead of the previous rest stop, which was 60km before the city. I figured that because Limburg was small, and that I had stopped at a cool rest stop in Limburg before on a previous hitch, it would be better to walk the little bit to the stop and ride 60 more kilometers than stopping short at a hitching spot. Boy, was I never so wrong! It turns out that the rest stop I was thinking of either doesn't exist, or isn't by the city of Limburg at all. After scouting out where the A3 highway was, I headed in that direction, walking up some pretty serious hills until getting to a point where two highways intersected. I had come to a pretty serous obstacle--the rest stop I needed to be at was on the other side of both highways, diagonally across the intersection, and there weren't any sidewalks or smaller roads going over or under the highways, which meant no easy way to get there. As it turned out, I had to walk about 5km all told, getting lost and having to reorient myself several times. I called William to see what the quickest path would be, getting help from a dude who accurately guessed that I needed some who approached me as I was on the phone. Along the way after getting directions from him, I had to keep asking. It didn't help that half the locals I asked either didn't know where the rest stop was or didn't believe it existed, while the other half affirmed that it was there. After spending a solid two hours walking, I finally arrived at the rest stop, around 4:30pm. I've never been so grateful to see a gas station along a highway.
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| Over the A3. On the distance on the left (past another highway), is where I needed to go |
Feeling full of positive energy after getting through the treacherous maze I had just blindly ambled through, I wore a smile and began asking. This go round it only took half the time to find a ride (30 minutes), receiving one from a Belgian businessman who spoke nearly perfect English. He was going to the Belgian-Dutch border, but only as far as Aachen along the same way I needed to go. At this point, being 5pm, I was considering getting let out at Cologne and spending the night with one of the many friends I have there, finishing the 450km or so in the morning. I was pretty indecisive when Walter (my driver) had asked me where I wanted to get out, but then a wave of optimism and determination swept over me, and I told him I wanted to see how far I could hitch that day, and so went the last rest stop before Aachen, right near the Belgian border. Besides my curiosity for how far I could keep going and my will not to quit early, I had plans to stay with a rad couchsurfing host that night in Paris, coupled with the fact that I wanted to spend as much time in Paris as possible, so I pushed onward. Walter was a legit dude, holding one of the most interesting and lively conversations I've had so far while hitchhiking.
From this point onward, my optimism was through the roof, which was appropriately reflected with the more positive responses I was getting from drivers. At Aachen, it only took around 10 minutes to get a ride, and even from someone who didn't speak either English or German. He was a Hungarian trucker (who's Hungarian name I forget...started with an 's'...), who gave me my first ride in a semi! And he did speak a little German, but just not enough to hold a continuous conversation. We were able to communicate through the universal language of hand gestures, facial expressions, and random noises, and had a rad time together. He was a really nice dude, who usually picks us hitchhikers (even though his boss tells him not to). At first I thought I was only going to Liege, not even 100km from Aachen, but then he told me he was going all the way to the Belgian-French border on the highway going straight to Paris! He would be going to Paris, but not until the next day after he took his required night's sleep. Driving in a truck was cool, but different. The cab is huge, so you have more space, but the trucks go muuuuuch slower than cars, and have to refill their gas tanks every two hours or so, which I experienced. But hey, a ride's a ride, and off into the night we drove!
Just over the French border at the first rest stop where I was dropped off, well dark by this point (11:00pm), I was completely awake and ready to keep pushing forth. After waiting just three minutes for someone to arrive, I got a hitch from the very first person I asked, a Belgian trucker delivering frozen chickens to....Paris! Tom was a friendly, stand-up guy who had a wealth of stories to share with me. Along the ride through the French night, he told me about the hooker he had given a ride from Italy to Belgium over three days (but refused to have sex with her), who had neither money nor any clothes besides the ones on her back. She had been abandoned there by her boyfriend, and was at a loss at what to do until Tom stopped for her and took her to where she wanted to go. Though the road to Paris was only another 300km or so, the ride ended up taking much longer than expected, since Tom had to take his required 30-minute break along with having to make a delivery before dropping me off. He was only getting 30km or so of the city itself, and the delivery ended up taking longer than anticipated, but it gave me a good opportunity to sleep somewhere warm for a while. It was particularly interesting chatting with him about delivering food (they were organic chickens, and I asked him about the differences in regulations for them, etc.), and experiencing (not really, but sort of) a delivery. He forced me to stay in the cab, saying that me leaving would be a breach of security, in case I was a journalist or someone taking pictures of the process. Which gave me a huge surge of optimism for the food industry...
Anyway, he dropped me off those 30km or so away from Paris around 3:30am. Unfortunately, he had to switch highways just before dropping me off, so I was on one leading around Paris, not into it. But it didn't phase me at all--I couldn't believe I had gotten that far, and was close enough to sleep till the sun came up and walk if I had to into the city. But I was hungry, having long before finished my packed lunch and snack. I was trying to see just how far I could go without spending money, and so didn't buy food along the way (except for a couple pretzels in Limburg....). But at this point I had to cave. At the same time, things started quickly going downhill. The dude inside the shop (which was open), didn't speak any English, and couldn't understand what I wanted to buy (I had to order through a window at that hour). He also was in disbelief that I was hitchhiking, which didn't help the situation. But Lady Luck has a way of showing her face just when you least expect her. As I was endlessly trying to explain to the shop keeper that I wanted some bread, some guy who had just filled his tank approached us, and was equally shocked I was hitchhiking. So shocked, in fact, that he simply couldn't let it be. I quote: "You're hitchhiking? WHAT?!? This cannot be. I take you to train." Not only that, but the shop keeper gave me a pastry--for free! It seems Lady Luck manifested herself in the form of extreme compassion and aid!
Dan, the French dude who gave me a lift, lived right down the highway, about 10km away, near one of the last train stations on the train going into Paris. We arrived at 4:00am, and he explained as best he could when the train arrived and where I needed to go in the station to get to the platform and buy a ticket (he didn't speak English). He still couldn't believe that I was hitchhiking at 4am even when he dropped me off, shook his head once more, and drove away. I was so close.
Alas, the train didn't start running until just past 5, so I bought my ticket, plopped myself on the station, and did the only thing I could have to pass the time and stay awake for an hour: I busted out my geetar and began playing. The time flew faster than expected, and before too long I was joining the locals on their commute into one of the biggest cities in Europe, and one of the cultural capitals of the world. If only they knew what I had done that day (though I'm sure they were confused a bit by my guitar playing).
I arrived to my CS host's just past 6am, who had generously left the key under the mailbox to let myself in. It took a little bit to fall asleep from all the excitement of reaching my 1,000km-away goal (which turned out to be more like 1,200) in less than 24 hours, and having the opportunity to spend a full day in Paris before meeting my mother. But once I was asleep, I slept for a solid four hours, before being awoken by my host, who had prepared breakfast for me. I had a wonderful day exploring the better part of Paris by foot, concluding it by cooking dinner for my host and his partner, who were some of the most generous and interesting people I've ever met through CS.
So that was that! I learned a lot about myself, other people, and the world in general through this trip. Most importantly, it seems perfectly clear to me now that the universe always works itself out, as long as you give it a chance to. We spend so much time worrying, hoping, and getting angry and frustrated when things don't turn out how we want them to that we forget how easy life is if we just let go and allow it to happen. I'm not saying that there's such a thing as 'fate' or that there's some sort of god or something running the show, but simply that there never is a need for us silly humans to worry. This was by far the best hitching experience I've had yet, and not nearly my last!
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