Gonna Hitch a Ride
9/5/10
I am hitchhiking from Prague to Paris–about 1000 Kilometers or 600 miles. I wasn’t sure if it would work, but my first day was wildly successful. I left the hostel around 11:30am to head to the spot I was told by hitchwiki–a wiki sight for hitchhiking all over the world–to go to. I was hung over, but determined. It took me quite awhile to get to the spot with the metro–an onramp onto the E50 freeway that would take me west all the way to Paris–but I made it after a quick stop at Burger King for lunch. I was out standing on the onramp with my thumb out…and three other people. I was encouraged by the reactions of the people–they would point to signify that they were staying local; some would wave or smile or give a thumb’s up. I was discouraged, however, at having three accomplices on the onramp, because i knew that people were less likely to stop for just one of us. I was also discouraged at how many cars passed without stopping. But eventually, two people left and after I had been waiting about an hour and a half and was close to giving up, I caught a ride. I rode with the guy about 50km (30 miles) to Pilzen. The man was Czech and spoke very little English, but now, no matter what, I had hitched a ride and succeeded by some measure.
I was dropped off at a service station, and not two songs on my iPod later, I was nodded into a truck by a Hungarian truck driver who fascinated at my American passport and took me over 200km (120 miles) until his route split from mine. We also didn’t talk much, but I was kept out of the rain (until then it had been sunny for the first time in a month) and I even caught a small nap. I had gotten across the border into Germany, which was a big step because I could now use my German to help me get past language barriers and hitch rides.
I was picked up only about ten minutes later by a German man who drove me about 30k into Nuremberg. He explained the entire Czech/German history to me on the way, gave me some hitchhiking tips, and was genuinely nice and good company. He even fretted over his inability to let me sleep at his place because he had to work a night shift that night.
When I got dropped off, I walked in the direction of the city center until I found an U-Bahn (subway) station and took it the rest of the way in. I wandered for about an hour looking for internet, which I found in a bar (weirdly) and updated everyone and was able to get directions to my next hitching point. I also had a beer. When I left, I wrote in my journal and had a giant kebab (my logic was if I was going to be sleeping outside and sweating the elements, I had better have a lot of energy) before bedding down in a great spot. It was a grassy area with trees and just on the inside of the wall of the old city. It was quiet but next to an Ubahn station, and a major street to deter trouble, and it boasted one more feature: while I could see everything, some bright lights in front of where I slept facing the other direction created a blinding effect that made me impossible to see unless up close, and I would hear and see people before they ever saw me.
It wasn’t a bad night; it was cold, but not unbearable, and I got some sleep though not a ton.
