So. I spent last week at Maria's place. It was jolly nice of her to have me. We had a pancake party for lots of CouchSurfers on Wednesday. On Thursday, I uploaded several photo albums to Facebook.
On Friday, I got out. I packed some stuff into my big backpack and small backpack, and set off, with my guitar as well, destination Klöden - a very small down in Saxony-Anhalt, where there was to be a camp held for CouchSurfers.
My method of travel was hitch-hiking. I made it to Leipzig really really easily. I then took a bus out to the Autobahn 9 and it went downhill from there. I stood for 3 hours and had no success in finding a lift. I had to turn around and hitch-hike back into Leipzig city centre, then I made it up to the minor highway north of the city and tried hitching from there for a while. But it got cold and dark and the chance of getting picked up all but disappeared.
At 9:30pm, 5.5 hours after I originally attempted to hitch-hike out of Leipzig, I gave up for the day. I was supposed to be getting drunk with fellow CouchSurfers but I ended up sleeping on the grass under a tree, with my sleeping mat and sleeping bag, just like I'd done once before in Munich.
On Saturday morning I had more luck. Using 3 different drivers, I made it from Leipzig through Wittenberg to the small town of Klöden and met up with the others, including Maria, who'd left with her boyfriend a few hours after I left and managed to arrive on the same day.
The camp was great fun. We went swimming in the lake, played volleyball, made ratatouille and baked pizza, visited the church tower, watched a fire show, and the rest of the time was spent getting drunk and having fun. I met people from Slovenia, Latvia, Czech Republic, France, Brazil, Lithuania, Netherlands, Italy, England, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Ukraine, Switzerland and Germany.
It came to an end for me yesterday (Monday) with views ahead to visitng friends in Uelzen once again. This plan changed to Hamburg when I found nobody was available for the day/evening in Uelzen. I hitch-hiked away from the Klöden camp, over the Autobahn on the minor highway all the way to Magdeburg, capital city of Saxony-Anhalt. When I got to the train station, my plans still weren't sure because I couldn't find a bed in Hamburg either.
With neither Uelzen or Hamburg to head to, it seemed I was about to spend yet another night in some random grassy area. I hung around being a homeless person in the station until sometime after 1, when I got on a bus and just rode until I saw a suitable place out the window. It ended up being an area in front of an abandoned broken apartment building, shielded from the street by bushes. I slept quite well, on the plus-side.
This morning (Tuesday) I finally found a couple of friends and a bed in Hamburg so I ditched hitch-hiking for the moment and took a train up there. I first spent a few hours with Larissa, a girl who came to Friends' School in the first half of 2007. We got some awesome ice-creams and falafel and basically walked and talked about everything we'd done in the time between then and now.
Larissa then had to head to work, and I met up with another friend called Nele, who I met at the Berlin Beach Camp earlier this year. She was about the greatest thing that had happened to me in the past few days. I was able to go with her to her apartment where I could finally have a rest from carrying all my stuff, and better still, she offered me a place to stay for the night. This is where I'm writing from - Nele's nice cosy room with nice cosy internet.
Today was much much more enjoyable than yesterday, although hitch-hiking is genuinely quite fun when you haven't been waiting for 3 hours already. I enjoy making eye-contact with each driver, attitude cheerful, hopes high. Some drivers give you a kind of expression and gesture that says "sorry, I'd take you, but I'm not going where you're going" or "sorry, but look, I've already got 4 passengers and a bootload of stuff". Some of them stare straight ahead, pretending you're not there, and rather than losing hope, I find it kind of amusing. It's really a nice break from the regular rush of life and that's aside from the obvious reason you do it - free transport.
I hope to see you all soon,
Patrick
No comments:
Post a Comment