Den Bosch, here I am!
This saturday Aaron, an Aussi that I met in Varna, Bulgaria, invited me to celebrate his birthday in ’s-Hertogenbosch at some friends place. Sure, I’m on my way, hitching somewhat in the Netherlands.
Plans were to start at 12 in the morning, but for some curious reasons I woke up at 3.30 p.m. with a huge headache. What
the hell, so late, and sun is going down at 7. After some hurry I finally found myself around 100 meters away from home at a bus stop, trying to catch some cars.
Sometimes you have these days, were people were stopping for you, but they all go the other direction. Names of villages I’ve never dreamed off, always hoping to find someone at least onto the highway and hopefully the next gas station. No way, today everyone stayed around Enschede. 30 minutes later, but in a fucking good mood a car stopped and could bring me at least the 2 kilometer up to the ramp. All right, give it a try.
The ramp to the feeder road of the A35 was a failure, and so I decided to walk the kilometer towards the direct highway ramp. Along the road then a car stopped suddenly, a young Dutch student from Enschede who thought that I got lost there somehow. He gave me a ride until Apeldoorn, and it came out that he also hitchhiked once in Germany. Nice one! In Apeldoorn, I was standing there no longer than half a minute, that a car came by and asked me where to go. They went to Amsterdam. What a pity! Some seconds later, a second car stopped, going towards Arnhem. This guy, also a young man, was on his way to bring repaired cellphones to some customers all over the Netherlands. And that on a Saturday afternoon. Poor guy
After that ride I found myself on a small service station between Arnhem and Nijmegen, between two highway junctions. Ouh, waited not long that some German assholes went by, greeted me as they did it over there over 60 years ago. Goddamn idiots, and while I was standing there, babbling all the blasphemy I had over for their idol, a Polish truck went by and asked me if he can help me.
Amazing how things went out the last years. Could anyone imagine a Polish truck on a Dutch service station some 20 years ago? Hmm…thoughts went back to history while I was sitting in the truck that was heading towards Eindhoven. My new friend couldn’t speak any English or German, so the only thing was that I told him my name in Russian, and then we both went to over own thoughts. He played some funny Polish polka-techno mix for me, really nice.
So after no more than 100 minutes that a student picked me up in Enschede, I was at a service station 25 km before Den Bosch. Unfortunately, the sun went down that minutes, so after some time and low traffic passing me by at the service station, I decided to ask people at the pump to bring me over the last 25 km. I waited nearly one hour until someone finally drove towards ’s-Hertogenbosch. This guy was a business man who was visiting a friends birthday party in Den Bosch.
Cool, same destination as me, and over 15 minute later he let me out at the train station.
Den Bosch is a really nice city, it has some nice bars and clubs, even if you don’t like the music there
My way back started at 2 pm on Sunday. I went to a spot my hosts mentioned me, and for my surprise the 2nd car stopped. A hitchhiker picked me up, and after some small conversation about his 8000 km trip through Canada, he throw me out at the ramp in Rosmalen. Thanks for that, and while I was walking up the ramp to find some place for cars to stop, a car stopped directly next to me. Wow, no waiting time!! The guy seemed to be a Turkish guy, who didn’t talked that much. Or maybe I was talking too much? Well, whatever. He throw me out 25 km at the service station I was standing the evening before, and this day I had more success. After some minutes a family van stopped, with a woman and two little kids in the back. She was heading towards Apeldoorn. Perfect!
This was one of the rides I love so much. Great conversation with the kids (Explaining to 6-7 yrs old boys what the hell a “lifter” is ), talking about their education what was really interesting and also a topic of my current studies now. I was a kind of gloomy when I had to leave before Apeldoorn. Could talk that much this day, enjoed hitching a lot. Wow. What different people you meet at such a short trip, in one day!
In Apeldoorn it was raining. Not hard, but dark clouds looked up the horizon. My direction. Amazing. After around 30 minutes of waiting (cars stopped, but noone going eastwards) an Algerian guy stopped with direction Deventer. When I told him to let me out at the service station before Deventer, he offered me (well, more: forced !) me too take the train, and that he wants to pay the ticket for me. No way for me to tell him twice and more that I am a hitchhiker, not a train traveller, nevertheless he just smiled. For him it was some kind of giving back the help he received when he came to Europe, he told me. He had to do it, and after he explained me I agreed with some kind of a bad feeling. Whatever, in Deventer it was raining goddamn hard, and so I stepped in the train to ride the last 60 km towards Enschede.
Ohh, what a great day!
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