Advertisement
Published: December 7th 2006
The joys of hitchhiking!
Sleeping in the carpark of a hotel... Jasper didn't want to sleep on the floor so found this trolley and curled up for the night. :PCruising down the Autobahn at 220km/hr I was a little surprised to see Miro pull out his mobile phone and begin to sms someone, occasionally looking up and braking heavily just in time to avoid a collision with the car in front... As if this wasn't enough to put us on edge he had told us only minutes before that he was from Slovakia and had a job as a meat worker. With thoughts of ending up in pieces in his boot we buckled up, put on our friendliest smiles, and did our best to keep the small talk going.
Jasper first suggested that we hitchhike to Amsterdam about 3 months ago. At the time I remember thinking that's an awesome idea but also thinking that it might be one of those great ideas that never eventuates... Needless to say it did work out and after Jasper had done a bit of homework on the best route we were set to go. Unfortunately we had to wait until Monday afternoon as I had to give a presentation that morning, but at 2pm we found ourselves at a Petrol Station on the outskirts of Vienna. We were on the main road
The Map
The only planning we had for the trip... West out of Vienna and thought that this would be a good place to start. Approaching the first car we saw, we asked the driver if we could possibly get a ride with him to Linz. He asked his friend and to our surprise said no worries and that they could take us further to Nurnberg if we wanted! This was the best start possible and a few hours later we were standing at a Petrol Station 500km from Vienna. From here it took us about an hour to get our next lift which turned out to be our friend Miro. :P Despite my first paragraph he was a really nice guy and took us all the way to Frankfurt.
In Frankfurt we hit a bit of a dry run and after an hour and a half of waiting decided to get some sleep at midnight. We found a dry area in the car park of a hotel, rolled out our sleeping bags, and promptly went to sleep. In the morning we scored a lift to Köln with the first person we asked and then got an awesome ride with a business man in his Audi almost all the
Our First Lift
These guys were awesome and took us the first 500km all the way to Nurnberg, Germany. way to the Dutch border. We did it in record time as well as he sped along at 240km/hr most of the way. This left only another 200km to Amsterdam but this proved to be the hardest ground to cover. We were turned down numerous times and when we did get a ride it was only on to the next Petrol Station. Then we got a lift to IKEA in the hope that we could get a ride with a shopper from Amsterdam back to the capital. This idea didn't work out too well though and most of the time all we got was a laugh and a big "Success!". So with our time running out (we were meant to meet Jasper's friends for dinner at 7pm) we cheated a little and took a bus to the train station and got a train the last 100km to Amsterdam. It turned out to be less than 5 euros each though so was a pretty good deal. So less than 30 hours after leaving Vienna we arrived a little tired but very happy with ourselves in Amsterdam Central Station. 😊
This time in Amsterdam I did even less sightseeing and spent
Welcome home party for Jasper
Was really cool to meet lots of Jaspers friends and hang out with them while I was there. most of the time hanging out with Jasper's roommates and friends. I slept at his apartment while we were there, rotating between the lounge, the hallway and his roommates room. :P During the day we did a lot of walking around the city with Jasper pointing out interesting places, and then every night we went out with his friends to different bars around the city. I had a really good time and would like to say a big thank you to Jasper for making my visit to Amsterdam so interesting. It definitely wasn't a touristy visit and I feel like I know what it's like to be a student in Amsterdam now.
On our last night we went to Jasper's ex girlfriend's place for a cocktail party. It was a really good night and I managed to catch up with Guus as well, one of my best friends from last semester. I ended up staying at the party until 6am and then Jasper and i took the first tram back to his apartment. We had to catch out flight at 12 noon the next day so set alarms for 9.30am and went to sleep. I woke up at 10.20
Amsterdam by night
I went for a bit of sightseeing between parties one night. and realising we had slept through the alarm quickly woke Jasper and we grabbed our bags and ran for the tram. Luckily managed to get some good connections on the public transport and arrived at the check in counter 15 minutes before the gates closed... :P
We flew to Bratislava and then took a bus to Vienna arriving around 5pm. After a quick shower and catching up with Cameron (my roommate) we headed out again to a nearby bar for Clara's 21st (my buddy). Was a really good party but I was pretty tired so called it a night around 12. Caught the ubahn home, did my washing, packed my bags again, and got 6 hours sleep before I had to be at the train station for my second snowboarding trip! :P Soon to follow...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.163s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 34; qc: 115; dbt: 0.092s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
Barbara
non-member comment
Boundless energy!
Joel I'd like to know where you get all your energy from! I felt tired reading your blog! I'm amazed you had the time to write one up! You guys certainly had an awesome trip. Thanks to all the kind people who helped you out and Jasper and his friends for making you so welcome.