To Frankfurt and Valencia

This is not one of the promised blog posts to come.

Our plan had been to leave Magdeburg on Wednesday, May 26th to hitchhike to Frankfurt. We stayed Tuesday night so that Stina could go to choir practice. She's awesome at singing, by the way. ;)

But Wednesday rolled around and Stina wasn't feeling well. So we hopped on the ol' interwebs to find out what our options were. We decided we could take a Sachsen-Anhalt/Thuringen ticket (28€ for up to 5 people) to Gerstungen and then a Hessen ticket (31€ for up to 5 people) to the Hahn airport about 120 km from Frankfurt (Ryanair's hub). In theory, we'd then use mifahrgelegenheit.de to find 3 other travelers, and we'd wind up paying 12€ per person. Not bad, considering that the bus from Frankfurt to Hahn is 12€ per person alone. We'd spend the night in either the airport or the forest outside the airport. We weren't positive this would work. We couldn't be sure we'd find anyone to share the price of the tickets, but that was the least of our worries. The real problem was that, while there's information on the Hessenticket online, it doesn't show up when we use the train route planner. Also, the bus to the airport (which is the only way to get there) seemed like it might be another one of Ryanair's schemes to make money (I'm not saying it is, just that I couldn't tell if it was part of the national transportation network or a more private company that wouldn't recognize the Hessenticket).

Anyways, the whole point is moot. We found someone else's Mitfahrgelegenheit. It cost more than the ideal circumstance of our travel, but less than the probable outcome. So we left Thursday morning with this fellow, and arrived early Thursday afternoon in Frankfurt. It was still several hours until Angelika got off work (our CS host), so we ate some carrot-lentil mush, and found a park to read in. We met up with Angelika no problem. Made some dinner, went out for tea, and slept. The next morning we took this kinda expensive bus to Hahn, hung around for our flight (during which time I saw more Americans than I've seen in the past 9 months, including one reading a Magic novel), and flew to Valencia.

Here the airport is in the city. So we simply took the subway (1€ for a rechargeable card, 1,90€ per person for an AB ticket) to Christiane's flat. Since getting here, we have:

grown to hate my flip-flops

spent a total of about 10 hours on the beach so far

eaten many plates of tapas

gotten ice cream at regular intervals

gotten lost and seen a rat *this big*

visited a museum celebrating the 32nd America's Cup (which I now know is a sailing race)

stabbed my ring finger with an orange tree branch

seen the purplest flowers and agéd tiled buildings

learned "una carafa clara, por favor"

relaxed with Buffy and Smallville

buried me in the sand

and hung out on a balcony looking over the rooftops of the city.

Stina has managed most days to write her 2000 words. We've started doing sit-ups on the beach. And we never get out of bed before 11AM.

Tomorrow we start hitchhiking to Faro, Portugal. Press your thumbs for us!

Grüsse aus Hannover

We're doing a much better job of practicing our German now.

We arrived in Hannover yesterday evening after a long day of slow hitchhiking ("trampen" or "per Anhalter"). It was difficult to leave Düsseldorf because while we stood in a high-traffic area, there wasn't much room for anyone to pull over. There was, however, a light, and finally after two hours waiting as we walked forward to see if there was a better spot to stand, Brendan held out our sign and a man at the red light said he was headed our way. Brendan sat up front and held a conversation in German with him, and about 30 minutes later he dropped us off at a Tankstelle (gas station).

At the Tankstelle we again waited a nice long while before walking around to see if there was a better place for us to stand. We discovered we were on the side where people could come and park and rest, but that there was a whole other gas pump on the other side and we'd probably been missing many potential rides.

We moved over to this other side and held up our sign that said "Hanover" (there was only room for one N) on one line, and "A-1/2 Ost" on the other. In this new spot we were in sight of several trucks parked nearby, and one truck driver came over to talk to us. Brendan talked to him and I understood little of what they said, but Brendan told me afterward that the truck driver said he would be there for the weekend.

We kept sticking our thumbs out and holding up our sign at cars passing by, and then another truck driver came over and talked with Brendan. A little later the first truck driver came back and had another conversation with Brendan. Maybe you can tell by now that the German is coming back more slowly for me. Brendan told me that the two truck drivers were offering to take us to the next gas station, which was a busier one, but each of them could only take one of us. They said they only had one extra seat each, but they were going to the same place and one would follow the other on the road. Brendan and I discussed in English whether we should take them up on this offer, and we decided we would.

We were nervous about this because neither one of us is carrying a cell phone, so if somehow we got quite separated, we would be in a fix. We both had a good impression of the truck drivers, though, and decided we would trust them. If we did get separated, we would find internet as soon as possible and email one another.

Off we went in our separate rides. This was an excellent chance for me to practice German because my driver did not speak any English, and I didn't have Brendan to carry the conversation for me. I wrote down the license plate number of the truck Brendan was in, just in case for some reason I needed it. Brendan told me later he kept checking the rearview mirror to make sure the truck I was in was still visible. We had our guard up, and I think that's okay, but it is also important to trust people. Our instincts proved correct that these guys were honest and safe, and about 15 minutes or so later they dropped us off at a much busier gas station.

Within ten minutes or so we had a ride, finally, all the way to Hannover. A man and woman around our age were headed to Berlin and would take the A-2, which also passes by Hannover. They very kindly took us all the way into town, to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station). From there we were able to find our way to our host by foot, and here we are.

Last night after we arrived we were introduced to an old German tradition where a craftsperson (in this case a carpenter), after completing an apprenticeship, may embark on a three-year-long journey. During this time they are not allowed to return to their home area, nor can they carry a phone, though they can call home. They must travel by hitchhiking and seek jobs where they go. First, though, there is a grand party to send them off, and we got to attend such a party last night, for a friend of our host.

At the party, there is an auction for all the items the carpenter will need on his journey, and friends and family bid for them. Afterwards, the money and the items are given to him. One of the items auctioned off is an earring, and another is a nail. After the auction, the nail is used to pierce the carpenter's ear, and the earring is placed in the hole. This was somewhat unsettling to watch, especially since it took awhile for them to get the earring into the hole and there was blood running down his ear. It's kind of hard to see, but in this picture the nail is already through the ear. The wood stick is his walking stick.

We had a great time getting to know the friends of our host, whose name is Sebastian, and drinking beer and eating yummy food. In between this party and returning to this party, we attended the birthday party of a Couchsurfing friend of Sebastian's. This whole night, we were riding borrowed bikes and feeling like real Europeans as we rode around.

I must end now as it's bedtime, but soon we'll post more pictures from New York, plus pictures from Düsseldorf and Hannover.

Bullet Point 1 Filled Out

* Ride from New Orleans to Jackson, MS from roofer who'd just gotten out of jail for a traffic violation and was on his way home for Thanksgiving.

We waited until Tuesday to leave because we thought we might have a ride all the way to Carrollton, TX, which is very close to Plano. We’d posted an ad on Craigslist rideshare, and this is part of what I mean by lack of dedication to hitchhiking. We were trying to find an easier way, and we could always try and find easier ways, but that isn’t the point. The point is to get out there and hitchhike, trusting people so that they will trust us back.

The ride fell through, so we set out Tuesday morning. We took the streetcar to the edge of the city and a highway entrance, and then we held out our “Dallas” sign and put out our thumbs. Within five minutes, we had a ride with the roofer. He was going all the way to Jackson, MS, and he thought we might have an easier time getting from there to Dallas. Since it ultimately shaved 150 miles off our journey, we went with him to Jackson.

The roofer had gotten out of jail at 1:45am that same day. He’d been in since Friday night and said it was for a traffic violation, but he also mentioned cussing out the cop. He said the New Orleans jail was one of the worst he’s ever been in, and he’s been in and out of jail and prison since he was 26 years old. I think he said he is 39 now.

He was born and raised in Louisiana, but his parents had moved to Mississippi several years ago, so he goes back and forth between the two states for work and visiting. He’d been hitchhiking just before Thanksgiving one year ago when his current boss picked him up and asked him if he needed a job. He is in between roofing jobs right now. His boss has a cocaine addiction, and sometimes his addiction comes before paying his workers their full wages, so he (the roofer) is thinking about looking for work in Jackson until his roofing boss calls him for another job.

He’s got a girlfriend in MS. He said he met her on a job. She is friends with one of his co-workers and she came by to see her friend, and the roofer was introduced to her. The way he recounted their meeting was matter of fact. She told him she needed a man around. She left but came back another day and he asked her if she really needed a man around and she said heck yeah, she needed a man around. So he went over and they ended up watching a movie together and now she’s got a man around.

He drank two beers over the course of the drive to Jackson. At first this made us wary, never having been in a car with someone who is driving and drinking, but he sipped them very slowly over three hours. He loves his beer. He said he doesn’t mind working hard all day as long as he can have his six-pack afterwards.

It was a very interesting ride. There is a category of people who pick up hitchhikers in order to have someone to talk to on a long ride. A 19 year old girl who gave us a ride from Bellingham to Everett back in September fit this category, and so did this guy, though they live utterly different lifestyles. It took very little prompting on our parts for him to tell us so many details of his life, and it is one of the things I love the most about hitchhiking.