Ho,ho,ho- here we go! Christmas time is coming and before we hitchhike home for Christmas (haha…) we want to present you the first Advent calendar on tramprennen.org! Every day until Christmas (or even longer) we want to present one story about the first time we used the best way to travel: hitchhiking! Have fun with the stories! And you are more than welcome to add your own experience! Just send it to gro.nennerpmartnull@ofni! Whoop,Whoop!
#10: Max
Squeakily the steel door opens to give way through a high noise protection wall. We´re dragging ourselfs and our two backpacks over the threshold to find ourselfs instantly in a new scenery: Being occupied finding our way over footpaths, green fields and underwood just a few seconds ago and following our ears towards the noise of traffic, we´re now right in the middle of it: Concrete, trucks, the smell of gazoline, crowded vacation cars, international numberplates, coffee2go cups, cigarette breaks.
What a crazy Experience – never before have I stood on a rest stop without having arrived there by car and with certainty to vanish in exactly the same car after a short break.
But finally I am at this point, exactly today, at the southern boundery of Berlin. Two professional travellers with backpacks, which not even contain a tent or sleeping matresses, but diver eyeglasses plus snorchels and a book about taxonomy of reptiles in southeastern europe instead.
We neither have an idea about how to get away from here. In my head there is this one thought how stupid and hopeless our plan was, to get to germany´s southern end in bavaria today – to Berchtesgaden – 700km – by hitchhiking!
So here I stand, under my straw hat, with backpack and shorts. I look down to my feet, watch the rags where my shoes used to be just a few minutes ago. They didn´t even make the first 1,5km from the sub station to here. What a senseless enterprise…
My hitchhike buddy´s and my wondering eyes meet, we burst into laughter about ourselves. But we manage to calm down, pretend to be serious und watch the scenery at the gas station. And now, after the leftovers of my mocassins have been removed from my feet, beed disposed and replaced by my spare sandals I feel much more socially acceptable.
Hey, look! That number plate is Heilbronn – or Heilbrunn… Or something else from the south!
Ok, street map seized tightly and straight off towards the man grabbing the gas pump and standing next to his pensioners-red mercedes. “Hello Sir, good morning, uuhm we´re participating in this hitchhiking race across europe and want to got to the south, uuhm is that your direction?”
Arrival in Berchtesgadn after 10 hours, 6 car changes and one change of direction through a wastewater tunnel underneath the highway after a wrong turn on Highway A6. A lot is happening on a travel like this, but there are more people, who want to tell a story! Please stop for Christmas hitchhikers!
tr – advent calendar #14
/in Advent calendar, My first timeHo,ho,ho- here we go! Christmas time is coming and before we hitchhike home for Christmas (haha…) we want to present you the first Advent calendar on tramprennen.org! Every day until Christmas (or even longer) we want to present one story about the first time we used the best way to travel: hitchhiking! Have fun with the stories! And you are more than welcome to add your own experience! Just send it to gro.nennerpmartnull@ofni! Whoop,Whoop!
#14: Julia
Long time ago, in a land far far away, at a time when I was still young and innocent, or as others might discribe it, inexperienced and naive, I was standing at the edge of a road in Christchurch, New Zealand.
A friend, let’s call her Jasmin (that is indeed her actual name), and I wanted to get from the East to the West coast of the South island. We were on the one hand too stingy for the bus and on the other hand relatively adventurous. So we decided to stand at the street leading to the west coast with a sign (which we decorated with cute flowers) that read „Grey Mouth“ (lovely, beautiful city, right my dear Kiwi friends?!).
Jasmin and I had previously discussed to not get into a car if either one of us did not feel comfortable about the lift and to communicate this secretly and silently through eye contact. After just a few moments a black car with tainted windows pulled up, a middle aged man emerged from it and without much speaking he loaded our backpacks.
With fear in our eyes Jasmin and I faced each other and immediatly understood – both of us did not feel comfortable with the lift, though neither of us was brave enough to say anything.
So we got into the car and our adventure began.
In the beginning not much was said and when ever the man tried to make small talk our answers were short and we hoped he did not hear the fear in our voices. To break the deafening silence I asked what all those buttons on the dashboard were for, as a crack came from the radio and an unintelligible voice could be heard. Our driver who apparently had understood everything took his radio device and answered. To our great surprise it turned out that we sat in the car of an undercover police officer. Our driver was on a dangerous mission against the notorious substance „weed“. A couple of weeks earlier he had caught the man who had supplied the whole west coast with this horrible drug.
This explained a lot! Our little village on the west coast too had trouble getting hold of more weed. While smoking weed normally was a social activity during which a group shares a splif led by the motto „puff puff pass“, it had now turned into a rather secretly done thing where people would smoke their joints behind their houses in order to not having to share.
The undercover cop told us he was now following up on those investigations and our fear turned into eager interest. We felt like Miss Marpel or Sherlock Holmes. We were so super, mega, hyper cool, being privat investigators listening to the police radio and hearing crazy police stories.
Our first hitch hikking trip was a full success. Oddly the work of our driver did not bring as much cheer to our village as it did to us. In fact it lead to many people switching to „legal high“ out of despreation. Meaning that people started smoking bath supplements and incense. This on the other hand then leads to new naive and adventurous anecdotes, but that is a different story…
Tr-advent calendar # 13
/inHo,ho,ho- here we go! Christmas time is coming and before we hitchhike home for Christmas (haha…) we want to present you the first Advent calendar on tramprennen.org! Every day until Christmas (or even longer) we want to present one story about the first time we used the best way to travel: hitchhiking! Have fun with the stories! And you are more than welcome to add your own experience! Just send it to gro.nennerpmartnull@ofni! Whoop,Whoop!
# 13: Lisa
I like to think about the whole Tramprennen 2016 as my first hitchhiking experience. I had never used my thumb to get from A to B before but I was dying to finally try it. Last year I couldn’t take part in the race because timing can be a bitch, as you know.
Before the start I was skeptical: During working as a volunteer for a local activist group I talked to many refugees which came to Germany almost the exact same route as I would be travelling for fun. I couldn’t decide how to feel about the fact, that for me it would be so much easier, simply I own this particular type of small plastic card I carry around in my wallet all the time. And then there it was – my first ride ever. A guy in his fifties picked us up at a gas station at the town entrance of Innsbruck and promised to take us to a better spot somewhere near the motorway. In retrospect I wonder what made him stop for us or what he expected, since I was standing next to the street in my FC St. Pauli T-Shirt with the big skull printed on the front side… Because when we finished out chit-chat about how we were, from and where he was going, we were right in the middle of a political argument I was defenitely not prepared for this early.
While my hitchmate was in the back of the car, something in between being really hungover and just tired, I spend about an hour talking to the driver about differences between German und Austrian politics and the European asylum policy. Somewhere around the point when he got disappointed for me not knowing the exact numbers about how many seniors in Germany get fincancial support from the government – even though I told him that I’m studying political science! – our argument got so heated, that he forget to drop us of were he originally planned to and had to take us a bit further on the rural road. While I was getting really annoyed by his stubborness, he really seemed to enjoy our discussion.
One thing he said, I don’t think I will forget for a long time: He said to me, that of course I must be so enthusiastic about the concept of open borders, because I am still so young and inexperienced, but that in twenty or thirty years I will change my mind. That I will be one of those people who will have a problem living next to someone from a different country. That I will be afraid and worry about my childrens future, because of all these refugees coming and bringing their different traditions. That stuck with me for quite a while and all I can say is, if that’s the case then I know, I will have done something terribly wrong!
Luckily at this point my hitchmate found his way to take part in the conversation and the topic was quickly changed to football, before our lift dropped us of at the McDonald’s at the next biggest town. For this first day and the rest of Tramprennen 2016 most of our lifts were kind and open-minded people and I am very grateful for all of them being part of my first hitchhiking experience.
But somehow I am also grateful to this first driver we met on the trip, because he made me realize the importance of spreading one of the messages Tramprennen supports: Closing of borders for people who need them to be open, while gaining an almost uncountable amount of priviliges to other people who are not even aware of them most of the time is not how things should work. And this message has to be shared as wildely as possible. Therefore, my dear racist driver from Innsbruck, look out for me – look out for all of us, sharing this opinion – I am more than willing bringing this topic up again we should have the pleasure of meeting a second time.
Tr-advent calendar #12
/in Advent calendar, My first timeHo,ho,ho- here we go! Christmas time is coming and before we hitchhike home for Christmas (haha…) we want to present you the first Advent calendar on tramprennen.org! Every day until Christmas (or even longer) we want to present one story about the first time we used the best way to travel: hitchhiking! Have fun with the stories! And you are more than welcome to add your own experience! Just send it to gro.nennerpmartnull@ofni! Whoop,Whoop!
#12: Maja
TR-Advent calendar #11
/in Advent calendar, My first time#11: Jonas
I wanted to begin with hitchhiking in my younger ages. My parents hitchhiked in there teenage ages and I growed up with my mum picking up hitchhiker once in a while. This kind of traveling was fascinating for me already early. But I dared it never. The first two times I was drunk and had to come back from partys to my small home village. Once of it I wanted to beat a snow storm and walk home, that was a 18km distance, and after sometime I asked a truck driver, more in desperation, if he could give me a lift. He did it, for 1000m… After that he had to turn.
I started serious hitchhiking in Australia. A friend an I wanted to hike. But the national park was 60km away from all public transport. So we decided that we wanna add the hitch to the hike and believe it or not, it went perfect, even if there was parctically no traffic. One of the first lifts was a pickup and we had to sit in the back on the cargo area. On the way back to the next bigger city we hitchhiked the whole 200km and after that even further to the next national park. Since then I’m convinced of hitchhiking. But it took even 4 more years until I could participate my first Tramprennen.
TR-Advent calendar #10
/in Advent calendar, My first timeHo,ho,ho- here we go! Christmas time is coming and before we hitchhike home for Christmas (haha…) we want to present you the first Advent calendar on tramprennen.org! Every day until Christmas (or even longer) we want to present one story about the first time we used the best way to travel: hitchhiking! Have fun with the stories! And you are more than welcome to add your own experience! Just send it to gro.nennerpmartnull@ofni! Whoop,Whoop!
#10: Max
Squeakily the steel door opens to give way through a high noise protection wall. We´re dragging ourselfs and our two backpacks over the threshold to find ourselfs instantly in a new scenery: Being occupied finding our way over footpaths, green fields and underwood just a few seconds ago and following our ears towards the noise of traffic, we´re now right in the middle of it: Concrete, trucks, the smell of gazoline, crowded vacation cars, international numberplates, coffee2go cups, cigarette breaks.
What a crazy Experience – never before have I stood on a rest stop without having arrived there by car and with certainty to vanish in exactly the same car after a short break.
But finally I am at this point, exactly today, at the southern boundery of Berlin. Two professional travellers with backpacks, which not even contain a tent or sleeping matresses, but diver eyeglasses plus snorchels and a book about taxonomy of reptiles in southeastern europe instead.
We neither have an idea about how to get away from here. In my head there is this one thought how stupid and hopeless our plan was, to get to germany´s southern end in bavaria today – to Berchtesgaden – 700km – by hitchhiking!
So here I stand, under my straw hat, with backpack and shorts. I look down to my feet, watch the rags where my shoes used to be just a few minutes ago. They didn´t even make the first 1,5km from the sub station to here. What a senseless enterprise…
My hitchhike buddy´s and my wondering eyes meet, we burst into laughter about ourselves. But we manage to calm down, pretend to be serious und watch the scenery at the gas station. And now, after the leftovers of my mocassins have been removed from my feet, beed disposed and replaced by my spare sandals I feel much more socially acceptable.
Hey, look! That number plate is Heilbronn – or Heilbrunn… Or something else from the south!
Ok, street map seized tightly and straight off towards the man grabbing the gas pump and standing next to his pensioners-red mercedes. “Hello Sir, good morning, uuhm we´re participating in this hitchhiking race across europe and want to got to the south, uuhm is that your direction?”
Arrival in Berchtesgadn after 10 hours, 6 car changes and one change of direction through a wastewater tunnel underneath the highway after a wrong turn on Highway A6. A lot is happening on a travel like this, but there are more people, who want to tell a story! Please stop for Christmas hitchhikers!