The ASA/GLEN Hitch

Marie-Nicole writes about here first hitchhiking experience on the way back from the first preparation seminar in Wertpguhl.

Hi Martin and everybody,
since Alex was successful in convincing me to hitchhike with him when leaving Werftpfuhl I had the chance to experience what hitchhiking is like.

First we went to Berlin Nikolassee. The first person we asked was a guy traveling to the South of Germany so it was better for Jannis to go with him since Alex and I had to go to Maastricht/Cologne.

After asking some other people at the gas station we found a man going to the outskirts of the city where we were hoping to have a better chance to find somebody going in our direction. The man dropped us off at a gas station close to Michendorf. The first man we asked when we arrived was going to the dutch bordern which was almost perferct for us. First, he was unsure whether he should give us a lift or not but when he heard that we were students he agreed. He was originally from Poland and was traveling through Germany on business.
When he dropped us off at a gas station close to Dortmund he stopped the car right next to a car with a couple who was going to Cologne and they agreed to take us to Cologne. With them we got our last lift to Cologne where I took the train to go to Bonn and Alex to Aachen and then to Maastricht.

I don’t know if hitchhiking always works out like this or if it just was good luck. I have to admit that I was totally surprised about how well this hitchhiking went. Not only didn’t it cost anything but we got to talk to very different people. Especially to the man from Poland, with whom we traveled the furthest, we had to chance to talk about various topics, also about our stay in Yemen. He was quite interested as was the couple who gave us the lift to Cologne. They also knew alot about Yemen and were really fascinated about the projects and the [Glen] program itself.

Now I understand the concept of Eurizons a lot better and totally agree that you can reach many people and also all different kind of people by hitchhiking.

Thank you very much for sharing this experience!