Tramprennen – Advent Calendar #5

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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!

 

#5: Karate Bilo

One of those stories…

This is one of those stories that starts with: I just went to buy some beers. So, I was in Christchurch and went to the bottle shop to get some beers. In New Zealand, if you want to buy any alcohol and you look under the age of 26(I was 23), you need to show your I.D.

I bought a crate of Flames, cheapest, strongest beer you get at the Mill, drove back to our house and put the box and my passport on the table in the backyard. My flatmates were cooking, so we went inside and had lunch. While we were eating inside some cheeky fucker sneaked into the garden and stole my wallet and my passport.

Well, fuck me! After some time looking for it and being pissed off, I had realised, I had to go the embassy, which is in Wellington, about 600km north to get a new one.

I had a car and enough money, but I was too stingy too pay for the trip as well. One of my flatmates told me that it was easy to hitchhike in NZ. So I decided to hitchhike to Wellington. I drove with my car out of Christchurch, about half an hour, to a village on the highway towards north. Parked the car, grabbed my backpack and my cardboard and basically just started hitching, standing next to my car. The first cars passed by and I really felt like an idiot. It took about 40 min. and a nice oldtimer (picture) stopped and gave me a lift.

bilo-auto

They were two brothers driving to a family meeting or something. Half the way, we stopped at a cute beach and had a picnic and short walk.

Now I guess, people would write about the “Rauschen” of the sea, and that the sun was shining and I felt so alive and free…well, not me.

Maybe part II of the story zu Nikolaus.

Cheers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

TR-advent calendar #4

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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

#4: Sven: my first trip

After going to Berlin and moving into my new flat, with flatmates who were totally into hitchhiking I wanted to make my first trip on my own.

Many months passed, and I moved to Stuttgart for an internship where I learned about the hitchhiking race for Viva con Agua and the one of “abgefahren e.v.”. I wanted to participate, but I had to find someone to join me for this trip.

Finally, I’ve met a girl who was also into this kind of traveling, and I told her about the race to Romania – and she loved it, but was not sure if we can get along for two weeks and if hitchhiking is real as she imagined. So we decided to join the race of “abgefahren e.v.”

The days before the start we did a lot of preparation – getting a map, packing the backpacks and planning the trip to Augsburg – the start.

Our trip started very bumpy – we decided to thumb out of Stuttgart close to a ramp, but it began to rain very strongly, and no car stopped. After a while, we decided to leave this spot and go to a service station close to the city.

About 1 hour later we arrived at the station and luckily the rain stopped, and we didn’t get soaked while walking. We started asking, and the first person we asked took us all the way to Augsburg. He was driving to Munich with his father’s car and took even a small detour to bring us into the city. So even with the bumpy start the first day of my hitchhiking adventures – it was a good start.

All in all, it was a quiet ride, and he didn’t talk so much. He dropped us in the city center, and we met our Couchsurfing host and the other hitchhikers for a pre-party.

The next day we met at the marketplace in the center where the organizers presented the rules and the destination – Bled in Slovenia. After the starting signal, my partner and we ran to the next tramway and we went met Stephan and his hitch mate in the tramway. They also took the same route like us towards a gas station on the motorway. While we were walking and chatting, he suddenly saw a car waiting at a traffic light and asked the driver if she could bring them to the gas station which she did and we were alone again on the way to our first destination.

Half an hour later we reached the station and saw how Stephan just got a ride and left, and we started asking the drivers. It took ages until we were finally on the road with the staff manager of a big company. We had the chance to talk a lot about the unconditional basic income and at some point his wife called, and he told her that he has visitors. She greeted us, and the drive continues.

He dropped us at the Austrian Border where we nearly instantly got the next car. A driver who will bring us all the way to the last service station close to Villach – my personal nemesis. He was a businessman visiting his wife in Italy, and he told us a lot about driving in Austria, and he was extremely proud of his car, but besides of this no fascinating stories.

When we arrived in Villach, we already saw a lot of the hitchhikers of our group and thought that we might get a lift after a while – but this was a total misconception. While running from car to car and asking, more and more people arrived and the station got super crowded of hitchhikers – some went down to the motorway and tried to get a lift, others asked the right cars and got a lift.

At some point, one of the stranded hitchhikers started to give up and tried to find a place to sleep – when he returned he found a fantastic spot to sleep, and it began to get dark, so we went down there and set up a camp, bought some beer and started cooking some meal. It was an extraordinary place to camp, and it didn’t look at all like an emergency camping.

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The next morning we started with coffee and some of our group decided to go down and try to hitchhike on the street there, and we went back up. Because of the stress from yesterday the owner of the station was quite pissed, so we were not allowed to ask in front of the station and had to give it a shot at the parking lot.

A couple of hours later we gave finally up and got a taxi to a parking 20 km further.  This one was unfortunately deserted and for ages no car arrived. At some point we even were so desperate that we wanted to cross the Alps on foot – we already checked the maps and prepared water when the first one got a lift – which gave us hope, and we tried it again. 30 minutes later we managed to get a lift to the exit where the camping lot was, and we finally could continue our trip. While driving towards the tunnel, we realized how stupid the idea of climbing this mountain range was.

After leaving the car, we decided to walk a bit but made a sign with the camping ground. After 10 minutes a car stopped and picked us up and finally brought us to the stop where we met the rest of the race except those who got also stranded. We made it at least first from the second-day groups. After pitching my tent and getting some beer, I started talking with the other folks and everyone’s stories made me full of anticipation of making more trips.

Despite these unlucky beginning of my hitchhiking “career”,  I continued and had dozens of trips to several countries which makes me very happy. I’ve made friends on my trips and had great times.

TR-Advent Calendar #3

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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.nennerpmart@ofni! Whoop,Whoop!

 

#3 – Alexandra

When I was 17, two other girls and I had a sleepover at a friend’s house, which was quite far out. In the morning his mother prepared some delicious breakfast for us and afterwards we went to the bus station. As we arrived we noticed the bus was going very unregularly and I remember us not even having enough money for the ride. We didn’t feel like hanging out there too long so we went back to our friends’. His mother though was really angry at us and wanted to rest. A little shocked we then went back to the station and decided to try hitchhiking. None of us ever hitchhiked before and we didn’t believe to get away quickly being in the country side and also being three people, looking like a bunch of tatty hippies. Astonishing quickly a friendly driver stopped for us and brought us to the city centre. There we got out being happy about our first successfull hitchhike ever!

TR-Advent Calendar #2

/in ,

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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.nennerpmart@ofni! Whoop,Whoop!

#1 – Mossa Nova

Mossa Nova , or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the (H)itch

I can taste it. The dust of the street whirling up by cars passing by. Standing next to the gas station somewhere in the Netherlands right after the German border. It was one of those days; those long and hard days, not because of physical action but full of mental effort. Most likely my company through the day is one of the mentionable reasons. A dutch man brought us here and against the will of everybody in his car, he couldn’t repress his affinity to Dutch and German Schlager. 7 hours long.

Additionally a giant is my travel mate. He’s half of 12 year old child and half of a moody bear, combined with an IQ of 120. You could say he is like a box of fertilizer, fruitful ground for the biggest days in your life, but mixed with the wrong ingredients and circumstances he can blow up every second. We call him Ludevicious.

Back to the gas station. I rather would like to tell you that we are standing there just for refilling the fuel. Unfortunately we have a mission. The mission to arrive in Breda, small Dutch town 200 kilometers away. And now we see the dusk. Okay no pressure but we have to hurry a bit. Setting up a grin. I button up my shirt. Pulling the hair out of my face. “ Hallo Sir, can I ask you a question?”. A face without expression is looking at me. “Maybe you drive in the direction of Eindhoven and we can join you for this distance” There it was the expression I missed in the first place: Simple Fear. An intense head shaking was the answer. Not one spoken word.

Why I am doing this? Getting rejected 8 times in a row sucks, especially when you see a person only every 15 minutes. Right now I feel already like an insect, like a bloodsucker, somebody who is taking only advantage of modest and honorable citizen. How can I dare to get them out of their small incognito bubble.

Most of the time I got the same reaction. One step back, the mouth half open for giving a short and quick answer and the eyes going up and down to check this alien, who or which HAS NO CAR!?!?!? A few were nice, but still not nice enough, nevertheless I have to mention it otherwise the bad conscience would take me down and I would lose all my hardly earned hitchhike karma points.

Then it starts. A quiet mumbling getting louder and louder. A scream comes to my ear. Not now. The bomb is exploding. But wait when it comes closer, this guy is not crying, he is cheering.

A rush goes through my body. “ Whats up???” I shout with the breaking and insecure voice of a teenager, only waiting for one sign. Thumb up or Thumb down.

And I love this little sausage, sticking on his hand, showing right up in the sky.

Grabing the bags, our tiny melons,the guitar, fixing the false moustache and running to the car like mother rang the bell on Christmas Eve. I knew it. He is back again.

The Spirit of A Good Hitch.

 

 

 

TR-Advent Calendar #1

/in ,

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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!

#1 – Franzi

When I think about my first hitchhiking experience, I seriously wonder: Why am I still on the road!? Everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong!

Never, ever before had I stood beside the road with my thumb stretched out, waiting for someone (whom I don’t know) to give me a lift. Means of transportation had always been the bus, the train, a friends or parents car – well, the usual stuff.

Although, I’ve always been tempted to give it a try… But cautionary and daunting comments (always by people who never did it, of course) about how dangerous that would be discouraged me to do it. After a long time of struggling the decision for summer 2015 was made:

Tramprennen – Here I come! Let’s go to Albania, with a guy I haven’t met before!
I could already hear my friends say: Are you insane? Did you at least attend some kind of a self-defense course? – I didn’t even bother telling my family.

Let’s get started – yaaay!

By drawing one of the routes we got the one named ‘Schnatterinchen’. Our first task was to hitchhike all the way from Vienna to Osijek, a smaller town in the East of Croatia. “Shouldn’t be that hard!”-I thought. Highly motivated I went to the hitchhiking spot with that guy, I got to know the previous day. I had never heard of Hitchwiki nor other nice little helpers and I had no map – so I was “perfectly” equipped. But no one could have stopped me and my optimism.
According to the others, there were two possibilities to get to Croatia: heading to Graz first or to Budapest. Not fully agreeing on everything we decided to just join the first person that would take us to the highway, regardless of the direction. In the end, the direction was Graz… after a whole hour of waiting. 600 km instead of 400 km? – Doesn’t matter. It’s going to be okay!

At the first gas station on the highway, we found a Polish guy that could have taken us quite a bit closer to our destination. The driver behind him obviously had something against that and crashed into our lift after only 10 meters. Damn! Should we get out and look for a new car or wait for the police? The driver preferred it if we left and to had gotten someone new, which we did after a short time of asking around.

So after some longer stops at Austria’s beautiful highway gas stations we got stuck at about 6 pm with 5 other hitchhikers at a gas station a few kilometers before Maribor in Slovenia. No cars in sight, still hundreds of kilometers ahead of us and we were hungry – time to search for a place to sleep! Didn’t reach the destination? Well, that happens. At least we weren’t alone.

A nice Slovenian guy offered us to put up our tents in his garden and spend the night with a bunch of slugs. But he offered us some self-made wine! Hvala! J

Next morning: Motivated as f***! Let’s rock the way to Osijek! The first setback awaited us at a gas station on the highway before Zagreb. After 2 hours of waiting the only guy who wanted to take usto the East planned to take off at 3 am.

“I got the blues”

// Why the hell are people even hitchhiking? What’s so great about not seeing anything of the countryside? Or only getting to stay at annoying, smelly gas stations? Or more and more desperately asking for rides? Are you all nuts? I need some chocolate… //

A really nice bus driver that probably observed us for some time offered us a ride to the city center. “Everything is better than staying here,” we thought and said yes to his offer. “Maybe some other possibilities will arise later…” To demonstrate that there are also nice Croatians he bought us some coffee and we had a little chit-chat.

Surprise! Getting out of the center of a bigger city by hitchhiking is as probable as … well, there is no reasonable comparison that comes to my mind right now. But it was hopeless. It was time to check the internet’s omniscience. Here you are – Hitchwiki! A website solely about hitchhiking? Crazy! There was even a description of a spot, which should be perfect for getting from Zagreb to Osijek. They mentioned a waiting time of 10 minutes to get a lift. Perfect – Let’s go!

Waiting time? Don’t you dare! After several spot changes: traffic lights – gas station – traffic lights: the next blues kicked in. No one wanted or could pick us up.
Since it got darker and we were so desperate and didn’t want to stay there, we decided to just walk the 10 kilometers to the toll station of the highway. Great idea. Until I found a driver and convinced him to take us to Slavonski Brod and to prevent him from falling asleep.

At the gas station before Slavonski Brod hitchhiking was over. Although we asked a lot of people if they can give us a ride during the night, it didn’t make any difference. On the next day the others of our route would be already on their way to Serbia. So we told them we wouldn’t make it but we’d meet them at the next destination. We tried to go to sleep, got a map (how clever!) and hoped for the best for the next day.

As we were told 2 weeks later on the lake side of Lake Shkodra, not reaching the destination on the second day at the first stage didn’t happen to any other team in the Tramprennen’s history.

But yup, still at the end we made it to Albania. We had the best time we could have ever thought of, with a bunch of great people and while visiting beautiful places.
And yup, I am still hitchhiking (whenever it’s possible) because it is the most terrific way of traveling and being part of the lives of the people you meet along the way, if only just for a short period of time.