Ten Miles From Nowhere
9/6/10
I have been heading my journal entries with where I am, and this one reads “Nuremberg->??? , ” which is fairly accurate. Yesterday started off rough, but got infinitely better. I woke up around 6am and went straight to the hitchhiking spot on an onramp to the freeway that I had found the night before after a few complications with the UBahn because it was under construction. The only problem was that there were almost no people, and there was absolutely nothing around. I stood for at least three hours, and the only person to stop was a guy driving in a REALLY nice Corvette (one of my favorite cars), but our exchange in German was so rushed that I don’t know why he didn’t actually pick me up. He apologized and said he had to leave; I was sad to see him, and his nice car, drive away.
I was finally picked up by a VERY nice couple, Al and Julia, who were only heading to Nuremberg, but at that point I was so desperate for any ride that I didn’t care. There was no food in the area I was, and I was starving; I figured at least I would be able to eat. It turns out they had seen me walking to the hitching spot three hours earlier and decided to pick me up on their way home from dog training (when they said this, the dog had been so quiet in the car that I hadn’t even noticed it was there, and was very confused until I saw him in the back). They could not have been more helpful or generous; they invited me back to their home for lunch, which was great because I really was starving. They also showed me a better spot to hitch from, told me how to get there, dropped me off at the train that would take me there, and Julia even made me two signs to use. I was thrilled, and I felt very lucky. I left with new positivity.
My luck turned around after that. I went to the new spot in Schwabach, and I wasn’t waiting more than ten or 15 minutes before I was picked up by two people, a man in his 40′s and his mother, who was probably in her 60′s. I had only been holding my “Next Reststop” sign (though it said so in German), but they took me quite a ways, about an hour ride, until their path deviated from mine. They were quite interested in my travels and made very nice conversation, mostly in German. They brought me to a very good service station, asked me for my blog address, and even helped me look for other possible rides by showing me how to identify French EU license plates, before leaving.
I went to the rest room before starting up again, and in line some very cool German guys saw my sign for Paris and were very interested in it. When I started hitching again at the exit of the rest station, they pulled up after five or ten minutes and offered me a ride. They were about my age, and really nice–two guys and a girl–but they had their directions mixed up and had to drop me off at a much quiet spot only about 15km (9 miles) away. I thought I was on the wrong side of the wrong freeway and had to double back, so I spent 25 minutes walking to the other side. Then, I waited. I probably waited two or three hours before a woman who had JUST dropped her daughter off to start hitchhiking in the other direction (but at a different rest stop) asked where I was going. It turned out that I was on the right freeway, but had walked to the wrong side. I walked back to the other side again to wait.
Hitchhiking is very Zen. You sit, sometimes for hours, in a place where nothing generally happens, and wait for something to happen. You are at fate’s mercy, and if you aren’t OK with that, or get discouraged, you will likely give up too soon. And even if you are discouraged, you have to keep smiling because people are much more likely to pick you up; I think because if you are having fun, you fit their idea of adventure and they live through you. I have also been surprised at the reactions I have gotten, which are far more positive than sleeping in parks. I have gotten a ton of honks, waves, smiles, and thumbs up from people who could not pick me up.
I caught two more rides that day. After another hour or two, I got a ride from a young, very “hip” couple for about 80km (48 miles), and then another from a middle-aged German man who was very talkative and had done his share of hitchhiking in his day. He brought me to a good rest station where I spent the night under the stars. I caught five rides, had a lot of luck, and got somewhere, even if it wasn’t as far as the day before. It was a productive day.
