Hitching Is Not An Exact Science

Yesterday when we were hitching I explained the concept of a jinx to Keki.  Now I don't know what the German equivalent of a jinx is but I do know that I sure jinxed our trip.  First, I made a tentative time table.  Never do that.  You never get anywhere hitching if you want to.  Second, I told my brother on the phone (laughingly) when asked when I would arrive that "hitching is not an exact science" and boy was I right.

We left Dresden in the afternoon and managed to dodge all of our tram fares out of the city (shh... don't tell).  We caught our first hitch in the rain at an intersection from a guy who wasn't really going our direction for very long but had caught his first hitch the day before and wanted to pay it forward.

At the petrol station he dropped us at we weren't having much luck either because everyone seemed to be going to Leipzig.  It probably didn't help that I speak zero German.  So when a van full of what appeared to be an Austrian metal band pulled up, we were stoked.  Sure to be the best hitch ever.  They were going to Leipzig too, though, and suggested that since it was getting late we just catch a ride (not with them because they had no room) to Leipzig and then back South from there.

It was out of our way but we had already chatted with this guy headed to Leipzig.  However, when we had passed on the ride, two other hitchers from Poland had taken him up on it.  They made room, though and we were all able to squeeze in.  Along the way one of the Polish guys managed to insult me being American and my hitching abilities nonstop until I snapped and delivered a particularly wonderful speech that shut him up until we made it to Leipzig.

Unfortunately, our ride left us at possibly the worst hitching station I have ever hitched from.  It was near the Leipzig airport and the only people that traveled that road were going to and from work.  After an hour or two of discouraging hitching punctuated only by a beautiful sunset and the clearest double rainbow I have ever seen, we were contemplating other options.  When a camper pulled up we started to get a little bit excited but as Keki scampered over there to chat with the drivers two hitchers tumbled out of the back.

So instead of a ride we picked up two new friends.  Their names were Ben and Martin and they were hitching in a group of about 8 or so from Utrecht to the Czech Republic for Fluff-fest (a hardcore punk festival).  Each day they split into pairs and then met at a rendez-vous.  Two days to fluff-fest and then a day back to Prague and then they would go their separate ways as I understand it.  Today they were stopping in Leipzig to stay with a friend of a friend and offered to let us stay with them since it was quite cold and dark at this point.

So we fell in with a huge group of Dutch people in a fairly large (but not large enough) flat in Leipzig.  It was a blast even though I was exhausted from traveling so soon after food poisoning.  We hung out for a while at this building which was apparently kind of a vegan kitchen but they were giving away all of their left over bread and cake and salad at the end of the evening and you could buy beers for the road for 1,50.  Oh my goodness, the salad was incredible.  It was kind of a cole slaw but no mayonnaise clearly and way more delicious.  I, being me, packed up a huge container of it for the next day.  And let me say that it was just as delicious the next day.  We had conversations about Israel (one of the girls had gone to hitch there for a while) and I sampled my new friend Martin's music.  It was pretty fun.  And completely reminded me why I love traveling. Especially low budget traveling.

We passed out on the floor and spent the morning hanging around with our new friends.  It was hilarious to be in a room full of people making signs for hitching.  This is a task which I am and have always been particularly bad at.  Our sign for Frankfurt that read "Franfurt" should have tipped me off.  But it also turns out I also write the number "9" funny or so I'm told since my nines are straight and therefore look like "q".  It's totally acceptable in America.  Or at least that's what I'm sticking to.  After taking pictures on the roof... but actually a sloped crazy gable kind of roof... to commemorate our new friendships, we each continued on in opposite directions.

After two stops at horribly dud hitch stations (one at a toys'r'us/ikea interchange - no one picks up a hitcher with their kids in the car or a trunk full of furniture - and the other several km off of the autobahn) we got completely stuck.  Now this happens to all hitchers but since Keki and I had never had such a tough hitch and Keki was exhausted after one of our Dutch friends kept her awake by falling off of the couch on top of her in the night (my snoring had nothing to do with it) and so we were letting it get us down a bit.  As late evening settled in, it started to hit us that in two days we might have gotten 100 km.  At this point, we were going to hit Frankfurt by the time my plane left for London.  It was a mess.

And then we met Frank.  With so much discouragement, I was ready to give up but was willing to try one last car with my only coherent sentence in German "Fahren Sie in den Süden?".  Now I would always ask this hoping that they would just nod yes or no so that Keki could stay napping but they would always babble long explanations that I couldn't understand at all in German and so I spent a lot of time looking back at Keki trying to decipher their answer.  I felt like a particularly dense child that she was reluctantly babysitting.

Luckily Frank responded in fairly good English that he could take us to the autobahn intersection to the South.  At least that was on our way.  So when we piled into his car it was a wonderful surprise (to say the least) to find out that he was going all the way to Frankfurt (or rather, a little past it) and would willingly drive us all the way to the Haptbaunhof.

And so we finally made it to my brother.  Finally.  On the verge of giving up on hitching completely.  I feel like every hitching trip has its perils but in the end you find a faith in humanity and a sense of adventure lacking in all other forms of transit.  At the end of this trip, I've met loads of people who have given me the warm fuzzies but for the most part the best I can say is that at least it was free and I had wonderful company.

Which reminds me.  It's so wonderful to be reunited with Keki.  I can't say it enough.  Her laugh and positivity (even though neither of us are quite as optimistic as we were two years ago) are infectious and I know that I will never have a dull day in her company.  She's in Marburg now visiting friends that I super wanted to meet but have been stuck in with horrible tooth pain and we'll hopefully be reunited tomorrow.  And then we'll have to decide whether we feel we've atoned for tempting fate and have enough hitch karma to make it to Amsterdam and then back to Berlin.  We'll see.

Now I'm going to go hang out with my BROTHER now.  Everyone can commence being insanely jealous.