Amsterdam - the weed

Fast times in Tahoe

9am found me street side. Six hours has been a good wake up call. Sign up again and I was away. Only this time I truly wouldn't have minded another 6 hours. The sun was up, the sky was clear and my belly was full. Life was looking good and I was enjoying being back on the road once more.

It took half an hour for my first ride to appear. A couple heading my way told me hitch hikers were a dying breed and rarely seen in these parts any more. Hence they had picked me up. Not sure if it was for their benefit or mine but pick me up they did. Again, the lift came with free snacks and drinks. But I won't go into them for too long as this happened... (but they were really cool and the lift much appreciated!)

So thy dropped me off at a rest are next to the autobahn just on the outskirts of Holland. The autobahn was undergoing construction and so traffic had been reduced to a crawl and opened up the possibility of appealing to the entire road's worth. But first I figured I would try the rest stop stoppers for the first half hour or so.

I wandered to the end of the area and whipped out my sign. Sun was up and so was my smile and soon I think my smile was outshining the sun as a motorbike with sidecar cruised by. Didn't stop but neither did my dreaming. One day. How cool would that be! Next a Porsche 911 drove up and so I again signaled with a laugh and then I began hitching in ernest.

In my last lift they had asked if I ever caught lifts in trucks. I replied that I hadn't yet and neither had I caught a lift in a Ferrari or a stretch limo but that my life had along way to go yet and so did my travels and so one day, somewhere, I would try them all.

Bwaaaarp! Bwaaaarp!

Hmm? Vas ist das?

Woah!

The Porsche had pulled over and I was being offered a ride. This car was new. Show room new and I was left wondering how much sun this guy had been having?! And so begun my fast, very fast, lift into Holland with a famous singer from Kurdistan who you can check out on YouTube under Delil Dilanar. When nearing Amsterdam, we wondered on where it would be best to drop me off for a final lift into the city. Stopping at a gas station to ask advice, I approached a lady who helped us out and when she saw what I was 'hitchhiking' in, gave me a big thumbs up and a laugh I could hear for a long time coming. Good stuff.

So Delil dropped me off at the next gas station and from here I caught my final lift with a man no
less extraordinary. Or unique at least. Climbing into a van full of chickens I found myself soon engaged in a very interesting conversation about pigeon racing; the drivers main hobby. Quite cool. He even dropped me off town centre where I was to meet my next couch surfing host and so I found myself in Dam square, Amsterdam. Now to see what this place has to offer...

Bonn, the non-existent city

Janina's ... beethoven house, 100yr old teacher, party, town, book wardrobe

Hitch hike stage 2

After the ease with which I had departed Karlsruhe, it was in high spirits that I set off from Frankfurt. I had enjoyed a leisurely breakfast followed by a spot of relaxing chatter with my hosts before embarking at around 2 that afternoon. Little did I realise that Frankfurt just wasn't nearly so cool as Karlsruhe...

Ok, so one minute was my record from the previous day. Now to beat it! My phone had just flicked over to 2:04pm when I reached my starting destination at a nearby bus stop (located via google maps) and as I placed my bag down next to me and unlatched my sign, I prepared for another quick exit. Now let's see what happens...

1^st hour: The day began well. Waves, toots and smiles galore.

2^nd Hour: By now the bus drivers, who follow a continuous route through the city and so are passing me each half hour, have begun to laugh along with me at my humourless fate.

3^rd HOur: The local police force, whose building I am standing next too, have also now begun to support my efforts each time they pass on their rounds. But my biggest support of the day was definitely the locals who had begun to approach me. Questioning where I was headed and why I was not taking a train they mostly wished me luck. A few tried to flag down cars for me and there was also one local pedestrian user who questioned me for 15 minutes straight about why birds could fly but he could not?

4^th HOUr: I am now told that there is no city Bonn in Germany and that I must mean Bornheim and that as such I am heading in the wrong direction. Huh? Scared for a few moments, I hit up a few locals and am soon assured the old capital of Germany is still located somewhere up this road of mine. More people are approcahing with wishes of luck and my bag is beginning to overflow with the stuff! I have also kept up moral with constant snacking on dried peanuts, sultanas, bread rolls and a green green pear. The iPod also came into play when moral began to ebb...

5^th HOUR: Music is my spinach. From a lifeless and somewhat prostrate (though still shivering) figure hunched over in the gutter, clutching at a wrinkled sheet flapping lazily in the breeze, I have been transformed into SMILE-O-MAN! Dooon dooon dooon! With laughs beginning to flow again, the drivers began to get back into it as well. They wave (I am not the queen), and shrug (Yes, I too do not understand why it is that your empty king size car with only you at the wheel and a number plate telling me you are from Bonn cannot fit me in either), toot (I am not supporting anything and so by tooting, neither are you) and smile (unless you are an extremely hot girl smiling is not really helping me reach my destination any faster), yell things out the window (contrary to popular belief, it is actually kind of hard to hear what you yell out as you whizz past me at over 100km/hr and if what I think I heard - you telling me to jump -was correct, I think I'll take the next offer but thanks all the same) and some just simply ignore me (Now as a hitch hiker, let me let you in on a few of our secrets. Firstly, yes, we know you know we know you know we are there. Secondly, no, ignoring us does not make us go away. What it does do however is tell us that you will not be getting any presents from Santa this year. And lastly, as you pass by without stopping, know that your plate number is being recorded so that we can make fake reports to the police about it and have your selfish arse arrested for dangerous driving (o:

6^th HOUR!: WTF?!??! 6 hours! Six hours! S.I.X. hours! Ess, eye, ex friggin hours! One quarter of a day! The time it took for an entire war to begin and finish back in 1823. Newton discovered gravity, Einstein discovered relativity and Rutherford split the atom in less time than it has taken me to get picked up! Shame on you Frankfurt. Shame!

7^th HOUR!!: WTF?!??! 7 hors! Seven hours! S.E.V.E.N hours! Ess, ee, hahah, nah. I got picked up after maybe 6 hours 20 minutes or so. I didn't even notice the car pull over. I was cold, saddened by the lack of niceness shown by the people of Frankfurt and did I mention cold? The driver had to actually yell out to get my attention but when they did... wow! Hug and smiles and laughter and party poppers going off all over the place! Some locals even cheered me off and I like to think the bus drivers and cops were given an extra smile for the day when they found me gone when they passed by on their next circuit.

Great finish too. Lovely lady and her brother who explained the sights of the countryside as we passed and invited me out to tour Bonn with the next day if I liked. For the last 6 hours I had kept telling myself that all I needed was one nice person. Just one. And in a way the 6 hrs was good for me as I will now never give up. Good things come to those who wait and wait I can. If I have learnt anything through travel, it has been patience. This and that you get a reeeeally sore arm after 6 hours of holding up a sign...

Berserk in the Antarctic

Another great stay with some more great couch surfing hosts. Diana and Daniel even gave me my own room! We passed the time eating pizza and talking and I must say that the highlight of the night for me was watching a movie called 'Berserk in the Antarctic'. Changed my life. Perhaps? Yet to be seen. But here is what it was...

One guy's dream and the usual story. His dream met with mocking looks of disdain. Surrounded by a society full of strangers and friends telling him his idea was foolish, he found himself faced with people telling him to get back in touch with reality. Calling his dream impossible. Telling him his idea was crazy.

Crazy? His reply to them was that working 9-5 each day and merely dreaming “crazy” things was crazy. To follow a dream was not crazy. To follow a dream is to live. So he followed his dream. He went berserk in the Antarctic...

Story: Walking beach side he found himself faced with the wreck of a sailboat. It allowed him to dream. Awakened in him a long held desire. Gave him new focus. Then and there he decided that he would sail. It was cold in Norway and so he would sail somewhere warm. Chase the warmth. Chase his dream. And so he began to restore the boat and learn to sail. Teaching himself as he went. And then he set off for South America. And as the title tells, then on to the Antarctic.

He had a dream. He didn't let anyone tell him otherwise. He wanted it, he chased it, he did it.

We're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz.

I didn't want to leave. The scowling gray sky dominated the horizon and really, it didn't feel a day to be doing anything. It was one of those days. A day where you switch on the telly, switch off your brain, sink back into the couch and slowly enter a form of mild vegetativeness. It was just one of those days. The type which helps keep Oprah Winfrey on the air, the dishes piling up in the sink and your once pristine lawn converting back into jungle. One of those days.

And being one of those days, my 9am start was just a never in the running. Instead, I was mildly surprised to find myself setting off at what I consider a quite respectable 1pm. A twenty minute street side walk brought me to the Frankfurt au Main autobahn off ramp and I soon found myself located on a grassy verge with my handy new sign ready for trialling. Sheet out and thumb up for an instant as a small truck crawled into view and then my head was back in my bag searching for my cell phone so I could time how long I waited for. Now where had I put it...?

TOOOOT! Grinning face pressed up against the glass pane window indicated I was in luck! My trusty signs first 20 seconds had gone well. Simply put, I am irresistible, haah. The driver was returning from Karlsruhe where he worked as an events organiser. On learning I was a kiwi, his face lit up as the stories of his times in New Zealand unfolded and I soon learned I was on track for a lift the whole way with this guy. AND he came with free coffee and chocolate! He has also offered his house as a place to stay when I visit northern Germany. Cool.

He dropped me at the train station from where I could catch a lift to the house I was surfing at and yeah, that easy. Hitching in Germany? No sweat!