On the 30th of April, we started all, and selected a crossroad from where we could move to west From Poznan/Poland. But, apparently it was not the right one, since we had left the bus in the middle of nowhere. While we were moving, the same bus driver came along us, stopped in the middle of the road, and gave us a ride towards some more normal place from where we could hitchike better... eh, consequences of not being ready... We were on the other side of the Autobahn, from where we could not go towards anywhere, and got stuck on a small road which goes towards other side... It gave me a lot of time to start making a flower crown over there, and I started working on my new project of finishing that crown while my buddy was trying to get the attention of the cars passing by... Later on, when I finished my beautiful crown (!) I started helping him by trying to stop all means of transport such as Bikes, motorbikes, even the tractors to drop us on the other side and finally we were picked up by 3 nice ladies. Mother and her two daughters :) They were polish and could not speak any other language, and we could not speak Polish, but communication didn't go bad, as they saved our trip by taking us to a more lively road. wohooo!!! it was just right before Autobahn, where the cars could pull over... So, we got excited, thanked and ran to find a good spot. 10 minutes, 2o minutes, 40 minutes...and apparently we were just fare-welling the people who were going towards... WARSAW!!! :D and that should've been the reason everyone was smiling at us and waving and showing some signs!!! :D Oh, well... I enjoyed waving them back as well!
finally, our second savior came, and explained us the whole and took us to the road called A2 which was leading towards Berlin. She was a hitchhiker herself and was going towards Warsaw, but not to Warsaw exactly to visit her cats! and her boyfriend :)))
Lucky us! Just right after 15 minutes when we were talking about truck drivers, and how cool it would be to go on a truck since we had never done, we got picked up by a Polish truck driver!!! Leet's goo!!!
4 or 5 hours of road towards Berlin... Talking about everything, starting from his family, kids till his job... travelling... I was thinking being a truck driver is a quite interesting job as you're all the time on the roads... Apparently, not so much, when you're repeating the same routes all the time...
Well, he dropped us in Berlin...but a bit far away from the city :D
We were on a gas station, which was on the road for going out of Berlin but not towards Berlin... What to do? How to cross it? When we were trying to find a solution the girl behind me who was another hitchhiker from Vilnius approached us, giving the "amazing news" of being stuck here!
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| Struggle in the "Jungle" |
Apparently she had already tried to cross the it but I am not sure luckily of unluckily Police stopped her from doing so. And looking around from the gas station, we just saw the bridge from over the highway... where we could go only from the sidewalks with high grasses and trees... Felt like a tiny forest... But when you have some companions, it isn't as bad as it seems... And when we finally arrived the gas station, it didn't take us long to find a ride! And you know, we were taken until our home. Seriously, I was not expecting the people be that much of good to us!
And the next day, when we had to leave Berlin, I finally remembered about hitchwiki.org- which saved our us from waiting at the wrong places... from Berlin we directly went to Gruneweld west service center, and found a ride which was passing from Hannover! Yaay! Half of the way is done then. And our drivers were so kind, and interesting two senior man. They both used to be bikers before, and now, they visited Berlin for the bikers' meeting. Even though they are not riding it anymore they just enjoy the atmosphere. And they took us to some nice place with beautiful nature on our road, where we could stop, relax a while and enjoy the view. They were so interested why we have chosen this kind of mean of transport and asking us questions about our trip and plans and all... And when we arrived to another gas station in Hannover, we got nice prayers from their heart... Despite the fact that neither me nor my travel buddy were religious people, since their prayers sounded so honest and from the heart that I think, the positive energy of it helped us quite well :)
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| People of the roads... |
Here we weren't approaching to people anymore, but people were coming to us asking where we are heading so that they could help us :) So, two guys that we asked however, were not going there, but they pointed us a car with a Dutch sign which was our next ride till Amsterdam. They were two girls, at the age of us, coming from the festival in Berlin. Hm, according to their experience, it wasn't as good as the King's day in Amsterdam so, if anyone is going to Berlin for 1st of May celebrations, expecting the same performance as King's day, can bear it in mind I think ;)
Finally we were in our first trip destination at 7 P.M! welcome to Amsterdam!!! And we arrived there from Berlin for like around 9-10 hours which wasn't bad at all!!!
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| Land of the bikes ;) |
Then we had time untill our host was going to be back home... And we decided to use this time wisely... Discovered the city :D with what it is mainly popular of course ;)
When we met our host he gave us the keys, so we would not have any access problem to home anymore for the next 2 days! Second day, we wanted to take the "free walking tour" in Amsterdam as well, as we are doing it in most of the cities, and it is almost a tradition for us. But you know what?- It totally was not worth it... Not even a bit... And it was our first time leaving a tour without finishing it... I guess we got into the bad one... Don't think it's because it was for free, because we have taken quite a few of the free walking tours, and none of them ever disappointed us with their information. But we could see the first Amsterdam Stock exchange Building where the capitalism was born ;) and we learnt a lot of historical stuff :D |
| Building of the first company with the issued shares: Amsterdam stock exchange building |
Well, I think there are all, with these, and later on, we went to a too beautifull building to be a shopping mall-Magna Plaza. .. But it was... And on the top of this mall 3rd and 4th floors were a cafe with normal prices and a quite good panoramic view to the whole city. Was worth spending some time there enjoying the city from the all windows surrounding you.
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| Magna Plaza |
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| View from the Cafe... |
Oh. wait, I have forgotten to mention that during the whole time, we were crossing those bridges and canals all the time, and it looks really pretty there!
okaay, since I mentioned that one as well, now I can go the next one a coffeshop that we tried out "Bulldog" which was one of the famous coffeeshops in Amsterdam.
And at walking around the redlight district and all was quite interesting. Walking in the streets of Amsterdam, I could understand that giving the independence to people they want and need doesn't make them get wild... Indeed it makes them more cultural and more conscious on themselves... As in Amsterdam. All the things that are illegal and not allowed in other countries are tolerated in Amsterdam, but you do not see crazy people (in a bad way) and so much criminal scenes as you would see in other places. I just wish all the countries would be able to come to this level that people would not need to have so much boundaries indeed they would be able to decide what is okay and good for them to do and what is not.
Anyways, but I do not want to talk about the same things as all the people know and get out of the main topic of my post which is about hitchiking and Couchsurfing... But, also, if you visit Amsterdam, definately do spend money for going at least one Museum. I visited Van Gogh Museum, and wasn't able to get out of it for 3 hours and it was amazing! But for sure I will visit Anne Frank and Risjmuseum... I just wish they weren't that much expensive (for student budget) so I could visit them all at once...
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| Museum of passion, determination and hard work... |
The rest of the things in Amsterdam we just followed the tripadvisor and what people suggested and all, walked around the city and admired it... It's great one to visit, but not ONLY BECAUSE of the coffeeshops and prostitutes... But because of the museums and really pretty galleries and parks as Vondelpark and etc as well...
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| Even though this is not Vondel park, this is a nice park as well |
Enough of Amsterdam, I want to talk about our host a bit again which makes me be sure that Coucsurfing is the great way of travelling. Otherwise, I couldn't have seen local places or couldn't taste a homemade Spacecake from an original Dutch person! ;) so cool, ha?
And 3rd day in the morning we had to leave for Brussels. Hitchwiki helped us again here and as soon as we put our sing and thumb up for hitchhiking the second car passing by stopped and offered a ride until the nearest station from where it would be safer for us to look for a ride. He was a dutch man as well, who was going to visit his mother randomly :) Such a nice person! :)
And when we arrived the station were taken by a man from Albania who was coming back from Amsterdam as us, but a daytrip... As usual, since my travel buddy is a little bit introvert, I was talking all the way... and answering all the questions of our trip!
Finally after 2.5 hours later we arrived in Brussels safe and sound, and went to the city center directly. But since we were dropped in the Muslim area of the city, i was quite surprised hearing all the arabic songs on the way :D Cannot lie, I even started doubting if I was in Brussels or not.
But walking ahead, understood that yes, we are there :) Once we arrived in city center the first thing we went for was fries haha! they really were good. And then found the peeing guy-Mannekin pis , and even saw the peeing potato fries' picture on the windows... But peeing girl had gone for traveling when we found her place the next day... Brussels, and peeing! I feel like I can call this city as the queen of the pees now!
And of course the king of the Graffiti! I spent my both days hunting the graffiti in the city as they truly are beautifull!!! I found quite a lot of them, I think... and everywhere.
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| City of tolerance! |
And anyways, our first night was with a turkish family who was living there for around 10 years or so. Talked quite a lot about the country, the current situations, attitude towards different nations and all...
And second day started with a great turkish breakfast, preceeding to Belgian waffles with ice-cream and chocolate which was a mistake for us since i was super sweet to finish... But it was tasty. By the way, It's cheaper to buy those waffles from the open shops near the peeing kid. And the best deals of chocolates that we found however were at the opposite end of that street.
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| European Parliament |
We checked out the European Parliament as I was so curious about it, but was close due to the public holiday.
Moreover we had little time as we had to meet our new host from Couchsurfing. She was a very kind and nice Belgian girl from a village from the south called something close sounding as Oreo :D Then we met more of her local and foreign friends, hang out in the skate-festival, and then later on at the opening of the art festival... we were quite lucky for arriving in a good day that we didn't even know before... Spent quite long evening and even despite the fact that it was already 3:30 a.m at night we couldn't resist the chance of observing the fall of the stars... Sky was a bit cloudy so didn't see them falling much, so I just made a wish when I saw... not moving star maybe but moving light :D Which was from the airplane of course, but close enough haha! It was a long but very interesting day and evening and night for us... Three of us talked for hours on the roof of the building, spent good time with locals, and I was truly in love with the liveliness of the city!
Graffiti everywhere, each corner with some street musicians, or with skateborders, or basketball players, or with people protesting something and people peeing somewhere :D and so on so forth...
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| Grand Place |
after that kind of good day however, we had to wake up again... And we could sleep two holly hours!!! but had to wake up early... We had loong long road ahead of us.. Till Poznan if we are lucky. But apparently we weren't that much lucky. The turkish family with whom we stayed first night in Brussels took us till the parking plot in the middle of the Autobahn from where we could ask for ride. but couldn't hitchhike from there with our thumb of course since if was the highway. It was probably the longest waiting of our trip! 2 hours! Until a very cute uncle from Czech republic took us to his truck... He was heading back to Prague.... Our hearts wanted to go with him till the end, but the rational side of our brain was pressuring us about going back to reality... To the final projects and reports and essays and presentations, and speeches and blah blah blah... He was taking different route than we planned but what to do... We needed to get as closer to Poland as possible. And agreed going towards Cologne... Or Dresden if he would arrive that day...Because, he wasn't planning to drive more than 6 hours... He couldn't talk english very well again, but now it was no problem for us at all, we already were used to being able to communicate without a common language with people! Best part of travelling... He shared the beer he was saving for himself in his truck,(no he was not drinking and neither was drunk during the time of driving) and we could even sleep in his bed inside the truck! Compensated our night very well! But we took turns with my travel buddy of course for sleeping... As you know, they pick us up for not getting bored and having a company during their travels... and we are using this method of travel because, we are interested in people and want to know them and communicate with them.. And good thing we did it all the way! Also, looked at the pretty trees along the highway!
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| Our lovely truck driver |
We had stopped two times with him and the second stop was in the middle of Germany, where we found a ride which was going till Berlin! You know what was the most interesting part of it? He was a jewish from Ukrain, who lived in Germany! and in the car we were 3 people: one makedonian from Turkey, one Azerbaijani (this is me) who lives in Poland, and him! True meaning of globalisation!!!
And you cannot imagine for those 4 hours, about what we didn't talk! Starting from politics, to sport, to philosophy, life, roads and everything! I did not even know how the road ended and funny part is that, we didn't ask our driver's name, and neither he asked ours. But we talked even about our families, and lives...However, since we arrived in Berlin late at around 9 P.M we decided to finish our trip here and take a Polskibus... It was the cheapest option, as walking around in Berlin back and forth would've cost almost the same price to us, moreover, we were tired...
And On Sunday, 8th of May, we were at home already...
But you know what, this trip taught me being more confident and made me braver... It was my first trip by hitchhiking and it showed me that if you have an aim, and passion to reach it, it's not that hard to do so... It also showed me how global the world have already become, and how many nice and like-minded people are around us!
As I always tell, travelling is not only about the destinations, it's about the people and experiences we go through...
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By the way, this is our trip route if anyone is interested :D
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