022 Hitchhiking through Western Europe – Part 1 "Difficult Beginnings”

I realize that I left my readers in a bit of suspense by not writing anything for a couple of weeks. Here is the recap:

I came back from Romania, met my friends and family again, and went off to the Indian Embassy in The Hague to arrange my Indian visa. I was not sure how long this would take, so I had to do it a bit before I would actually go there. Of course this time it went fairly quickly, so I had my passport back after 5 days. It was still 3,5 weeks before actually going to India, and I didn’t feel like sitting around for that much time, so I looked for something interesting to do in the meantime.
Around that time, Jeroen asked me if I wanted to go and climb some mountains somewhere (we settled on the Swiss Alps) and Judith asked if I was still going to visit her in Vienna. Since Austria is only the next country, it seemed to make sense to combine these two places, and since I had the time, I put in some other stops on the trip and planned to do everything hitchhiking.

I left too late the first day. I was slightly stressed. It rained. My heart wasn’t in it. This was not the way hitchhiking is supposed to be. After standing next to the road in Utrecht for 4 miserable hours I gave up. Great start of my trip that was. I went back home, and felt like the most incompetent hitchhiker ever. I had to write to my Couchsurf host in Luxembourg to tell her I wasn’t going to make it today. I started wondering if maybe I should just stay at home or take the train the next day. I was frustrated and tired. 

But then I got some good advice about a better spot to try, the weather was going to be better the next day, and someone sent me some positive thoughts (thanks Dieuwke), and my mood changed. Tomorrow, everything was going to be better.

And it was. I made a big cardboard sign, and took it to my new spot. When I was 20 seconds away from the spot where I wanted to actually put my thumb in the air and try my luck, a car stopped and an older lady asked me where I was going. They took me in the right direction. This day, everything went much smoother. With hitchhiking, you can really run into yourself. I don’t believe in Karma or anything like that, but it is clear to me that the way you feel influences the way other people see you. It works very simple. If I feel negative and if like nothing is going to work, no cars stop. If people can see I feel great and I am really happy to hitchhike, they stop.

Today was a positive day. I had lots of short rides, it took me a while to get through Liege (I got a city tour from a couple who drove right through the city centre), and arrived in Luxembourg city. There I met my host, and I stayed for two days in Luxembourg City. I had a great time. It is not really a very exciting city, but if you know the right people, you can build a party anywhere. Especially if you host has three Mongolian flatmates who like to cook and to drink vodka.

The way to Dijon was exceptionally quick. I got a ride with a Dutch man in a horse-truck, who told me he would go all the way to Dijon in one go and I could go with him, but only if I would drive. There were no horses in the back, so I was fine with it. He told me a lot about the expensive horse business. And he told me to drive a bit faster when I was keeping to the speed limits. Ow well, at least he will have to pay the speeding tickets.

Dijon was nice. I didn’t see any Mustard though. My host was cool, although she was really busy with a paper she had to write. I explored the city on my own.

From there I was off to Switzerland.  This meant I had to take some smaller roads and cross the border between France and Switzerland via a smaller road.  It cost me a bit of time, but I got there fine in the end. I drove with an older couple in a camper who were on perpetual holiday, and with a nurse who lives in France but works in a Swiss hospital (and thus makes about 3 times more than her French colleagues in France, well done that). 

My first stop was in the Swiss Jura, so hilly country, not yet mountains. I stayed with a Couch Surfer who just came back from 3 years in Bogota, Colombia. I practised my Spanish. I also went walking for a day in the countryside. I wanted to walk to a village near the French border, got lost, only found out half way through, visited another village, walked to the village I wanted to go to originally, and generally had a great day in the sun among the autumn colours.

From Porrontruy in the Jura, I went to Geneva, which was a good day of hitchhiking, among others with a man who just came back from the yearly military service, a lady who used to be a pilot but was now studying for being a truck driver (she said a truck was more complicated than a small aircraft) and a guy who puts the diamonds on really expensive Swiss watches.