Bad News

After the detour around Bad Oeynhausen, chances dropped down to zero that I’ll arrive in Prague before sundown. Anyway, back on the road, the short lift from Veltheim goes until Auetal service station.

Auetal is pretty much the service station when hopping over from the A2 to the A30, and recently I stood there for the first time in the other direction. Back then, when hitchhiking towards Bulgaria, it was raining in Auetal.

We had pretty much sunshine this day, some clouds, but not too bad. In Auetal, it seems, it’s always raining. Also this time. Nevermind, I take my position at the end of the service area. Some water on your clothes won’t kill you, so what. A first car stopps. Bad Nenndorf, I resign, it’s just before Garbsen service station. And who knows how hard it is raining there. Another car within some short minutes, going just to the next off-ramp. No way, the 3rd car will be the next lift, nevermind where he or she is going to.

It’s a ride towards Bad Nenndorf. Ok, hop in, interesting dude, selling some sort of crispbread with an interesting cheese-cream-whatever spread to all kind of supermarkets. He hands me a package of three, makes sure I understand that they can feed a man for a whole day, and short time later we approach Bad Nenndorf on-ramp, where he let’s me out.

The on-ramp itself is pretty bad, no real place to stand, narrow corner, but some green beside the road. Luckily not much trucks going up here, so maybe some cars might actually stop. And, most important, the sun is shining.

5 Minutes later, a Mercedes Sprinter is stopping. Get in, destination: Berlin! The driver, a 28yr old guy, is one of the best rides ever had. He’s some sort of martial art / armourer, running up and down forests in rural Brandenburg with his bows, knifes, sabres, daggers, whatever. I don’t let him know my aversion towards weapons, and so he continues. About Psychology in war, and all sort of stuff. And Tao. That you need to find your path, about freedom and inner peace. I’m slightly confused, but it turnes out he’s a real nice dude that doesn’t need his weapons to fight, but to find his essence, his consistency with whatever. A nice one was his little sabre hanging on his belt, which he carries around all the time. I’m a recognized collector, his words are when I ask him if it’s allowed to carry such weapons aorund in freetime. Oh my. Later, he tells me how he fights little Nazi’s in his village, because police doesn’t lift a finger to do anything. Sympathic.

Time runs, and at 4 p.m. we say good bye at Börde service station, just before Magdeburg. From there, I soon get a ride from a Polish man on the way back to his home country. A conversation is difficult as none of us can communicate with either language, but he’s so kind to feed me with lots of Polish cake, even when I refused after the first one, I had to eat more….

So slowly, we drive through the rain until Dresden, where it’s already dark when we arrive. I don’t like asking people at the service station, and for that’s it’s just 7 p.m., I get to the end of the station. Luckily there’s some light, and within some time I get a ride to Heidenau in Sachsen. After hopping in and on the road I recognize that there’s no service station inbetween and that I won’t get stuck in the dark on an on-ramp in Heidenau, they bring me to the nearest train station. It’s 9 p.m. already when we arrive there, and of course we miss the train to Prague (talking over seconds!), but somehow there’s more than one and late at night, 1:30 a.m. somewhat, I finally arrive in the Czech capital.

“So weit ist es nun schon gekommen, die Frauen beherrschen uns mittlerweile in allem.” - Kurze Sprachpause - “Na wenigstens darf ich noch mein Bierchen trinken.”

Manfred* ist von kräftiger Natur. Seine ungepflegten Haare quillen unter der roten Billig-Cap irgendeiner Brauerei hervor, die rote Nase tut ihr übriges. Das Gesicht vom Alkohol gezeichnet, wie mir auffällt. In der Hand hält er einen halben Liter eines mir unbekannten Bieres.

Manni ist nur Beifahrer, natürlich, er darf ja heute trinken. Seine Frau fährt, ruhig und besonnen, verkneift sich wohl ihr überdrüssiges Kommentar. Zur Arbeit müsse Sie, einer muss ja schließlich das Geld nach Hause bringen.

Manfred würde mich ja bis nach Holland bringen, aber er müsse die 5 km gleich wieder zurücklatschen, quer durch den Busch. Was er da will, frage ich mich, aber ich verkneife mir die Frage. Wohlmöglich liegen im Jutebeutel noch ein paar Humpen und eine Pulle Schluck bereit - ist ja schließlich ein langer Weg, so zu Fuß. Kann ich froh sein, das seine Frau eben rechts ran gefahren ist, lallt er vom Beifahrersitz hinter zur Rückbank.

Nachdem er sich also kurz über die Emanzipation, seine Frau, sein Bier und den Busch ausgelassen hat, widmet Manfred sich seinem Tramper auf der Rückbank. Was ich denn bei den Käsköppen studieren würde. -Bildungswissenschaften. “Achso, Psychologie sozusagen.”

Im selbigen Moment biegen wir auf den Parkplatz zum Lidl ein, Ende der Etappe, Fahrzeugwechsel, raus aus dem Vehikel irgendwelcher Wildfremden, dem Kurztripp in eine andere Dimension, ein anderes Leben. Nennt es wie ihr wollt.

Ich bin einzig froh ihm nun nicht ewig erklärt haben zu müssen, das Bildungswissenschaften nicht
Psychologie ist. Hätte er wohlmöglich sowieso nicht mehr verstanden.

–  Lift von Schüttorf nach Bad Bentheim, Mai 2009. *Name geändert

Randomness. Spontaneous. Just “whatever”. In the end, it will fit somehow anyway.

This wednesday, I decide, I’m going to hitchhike to Prague. According to google’s maps, it’s just 733 km. Easy to do in just one day.

At 9:00 am I approach the on-ramp in Oldenzaal. As to my surprise, the first car going up the highway already stops. Wow! In his little van, we reach the on-ramp Rheine/Dreierwalde in no time 23 minutes later. If this was one of the usual Enschede-Hörstel trips, it would have been a new record. For sure.

A conversation will not really come up, we’re still somewhat sleepy. He invites me to some events of his scouting team in April, take the flyer, and get out of the car.

On-ramp Dreierwalde. This was the last on-ramp along the A30 I never hitchhiked inbetween Hörstel and the Dutch border. Guess why? No idea, no time to enjoy the view over the fields or think about it, a Mercedes Cabrio already stopps and asks where I want to go. Uh, ehm, no idea, direction Osnabrück. And so I get in. 14 Minutes later, at 9:37, he lets me out in Ibbenbüren, drives towards the on-ramp towards Amsterdam and wishes me a good journey. Me myself just hopes that my dirty shoes didn’t ruined his doormat. It looked more expensive than my whole backpack. Jesus, Mercedes Cabrio….

Realizing that he left me at the wrong on-ramp, walking back to the right ramp, get in position, see the Mercedes approaching again. Shiiit….

Same driver as before, just yells “Ah, threw you out at the wrong on-ramp, but you already got it. Tschööö” and disappears. Whatever.

While I scratch my head, wonder about the hitchhiking speed (37 Minutes, Oldenzaal-Ibbenbüren!), the next car stops. Osnabrück, all right, get in. Usual questions, third time today: Where do you go? - Prag. But this time my driver is confused. “Prag? Wo is dat denn?” (Prag, where’s that?). -Czech Republic, oh okay, still doubtful glances, I change the topic of conversation, and some minutes later, we stop in Osnabrück-Nahne. I check my watch, can’t believe my eyes. 57 minutes only. Time for  breakfast.

By the way, he told me that just some meters away from the on-ramp there’s a Currywurst-Imbiss, where you can get your currywurst in 10 degrees of severity. Must be awesome, I hear my driver talking while I jump out of the car. Ok, try it out next time.

OS-Nahne needs some time for the next ride, as usual some local rides I have to decline, then the jackpot: Bad Oeynhausen. The ride was slow, but nice. The driver makes sure I don’t talk to much as he says: “Ok, now I picked you up, but not for entertaining me”. That’s a word, I lean back, and enjoy the countryside we pass by.

Bad Oeynhausen, 11:10 am. I’m still pretty fast on my way, and if there are no traffic jams along the A2, I can make it to Prague before sundown. But hey, Oeynhausen, there was something. Right. The A30 stops, you have to cross the whole city, get towards the approach road and one kilometer later, you are on the A2. I search for the petrol station just before the approach road, but as this is an expensive Shell (or was it Aral?) station, no one even things about stopping here. No cars for 10 minutes, I become nervous, walk towards the approach road. There, Polish and Dutch trucks rush along me, no chance to stop anyone. Shit, we have a problem.

I look up the map, see that it’s just 1 km towards the A2, but hitching at the on-ramp directly as well is no option, as traffic there already drives up to +100 km/h. So, what else? Mh, hitchhiking to the next on-ramp in Porta! I walk some 500 m back along the road towards Minden, hitch a ride easily to Porta Westfalica. My driver promises me that it’s easy to hitch towars the highway from Porta, but no way, another approach road, fast traffic, no hard shoulder. Damn!

A 40-45 min walk through Porta follows, I choose a shortcut through the city center which seems to be a walk up-up-uphill, annoying with a somewhat heavy backpack on your back.  Lot’s of stuff you actually don’t need on a short weekend-trip, but whatever, some time later I am along the way to Veltheim. A nice busstop, but traffic doesn’t seem to go this way. The schoolbus didn’t even stop for me as well, but after some minutes an old man stops and brings me further some 5 km towards the Veltheim on-ramp along the A2. “There is nearly no traffic going onto the highway here, most goes up in Porta”, he tells me during our short ride together. Happy Birthday, Porta. The approach road with no way to hitchhike. Thanks anyway, want to give it a try, and suddenly I am there, at an on-ramp of the A2, in the middle of some forest. I wait exactly 30 minutes, while 3 (!) cars pass by.

Options could be to hitch to Veltheim, there towards the next on-ramp in Bad Eilsen. But suddenly a car approaches, blinks, ready to go down onto the highway. I hop and jump like crazy, hope he’s stopping somehow. He does. Auetal, next service station, some 15 km further. Amazing! The little detour around Porta Westfalica costs me 2 hours, but whatever. Back on the road again!

Yesterday, a Dutch friend and me traveled from Enschede to Hörstel. I somehow had the wish to go the way by hitchhiking, saving the money for the train. Anyway, my friend never hitchhiked before, so we decided to buy a train ticket and do it the lazy way. 

The train needs some ~90 minutes towards Münster, where we have to pick up another train for Rheine, where again we have to change for the last train towards Hörstel. The whole journey mostly needs 2 and a half hour if there is no delay with any of the trains, which in fact never are on time. By hitchhiking, you can just get to the on-ramp in Oldenzaal, hitch the ~60 km in 1 - 1,5 hours. 

Anyway, while sitting in the train, we approached Ochtrup. From there it’s only 20 km to Rheine, but as far as I know buses are not going this way frequently. For some weird reason, we decided to get out here, taking a shortcut. 

Ochtrup isn’t that small as I thought, anyway, we walked some 15 minutes until we saw the end of town. There, we started hitchhiking, and - amazing! - the 7th car after no more than two or three minutes stopped. The driver had to work in Salzbergen, so we hitched there. We talked about education and, as usual, got to the conclusion that the educational system in Germany “scheisse is”. Twenty minutes later, he left us at a crossing in Salzbergen, 50 meter away from the train station. We had the chance to hitch further towards Rheine, but as we still had two valid train tickets and the train from Salzbergen only needs 15 minutes towards Hörstel, we waited for this one. Anyway, thanks to the shortcut, we arrived in Hörstel nearly 40 minutes earlier than if we would have taken the route via Münster.

Message of the Day? Whatever.