Hitch-Hiking

Hey, guess what I did over the weekend of Easter? Conde, a spanish friend from Sarphatistraat, and me signed up for a hitch-hiking match!
We met 14 other couples in Utrecht, and here was the first time we learned about our destination. We were to go to La Vancelle, south of Strasbourg, in France. And since it was a match, the whole idea was to get there first!

We started off quite good. First we were lucky to get a lift from Utrecht all the way to Cologne (Köln).
On a Rasthof just outside of the city, a woman and a daughter took us further to a gasstation just south of Koblenz (around 60 km south of Köln).

Here we met a couple of Catalans (spanish). When they took off from the high-way, we asked them to let us out (since it was no longer our preferred direction). So suddenly, we were in the middle of nowhere - luckily, these places also have gasstations. Here, a cab-driver had mercy on us, and took us to a Rasthof where there were supposed to be more cars.
But, alas. We got there around 17:30, and after an hour or so asking people for a lift without any success, we realized we were stranded. It was getting darker, it was snowing, and most of the cars passing by were locals going absolutely nowhere.
We had dinner at around 8, and asked people in the restaurant for lifts. There were lots of truckers here, but they weren't allowed to be on the road until midnight. So we agreed with one of them that if we couldn't get a lift til then, we would meet him outside. Off course we didn't get a lift, and so we spent the next three hours sleeping underneath a staircase.
At 24:00 hours, we met the trucker, who took us to a place close to Karlsruhe in Germany, around 30 minutes from the French border.
Here, we met a french trucker who reluctantly took us with her, and let us off in a tiny place called Kandel, just north of the border - she didn't want to take us any further, because if anyone in France found out she'd picked us up, she could get fired (insurance-issues). It was around 2 in the night, and again there were no cars in sight. We did come across some really friendly personell at a gasstation however - they served us coffe and gave us shelter in their storage room for some hours.

(Yes, it's as comfortable as it looks, sleeping on cold tile- floors...)When light of dawn started to show its face, we started to walk in direction of the border. It was raining slightly, the weather was chilly, and guess what- still no cars
We passed a trainstation, and after talking it through we acctually decided to call the trip of (yes, we chickened out!!!). So close, but yet so far...
We took a train to Karlsruhe, from here to Mannheim, and then, we went to Köln (Cologne).
Here we were simply tourists for a couple of hours. It was great; we had coffee at starbucks (my first time ever!!), saw the Cathedral and went to the 4711; where they made the first cologne.



The most comforting thing was probably the thought that there would be trains, not strange cars that might never show up, that would take us home from there, and that we would see our beds again that very same night. No more floors-of-tile!
We arrived in Amsterdam at around 22:30, and I've hardly ever had such a great shower, and a good night's sleep!! Home sweet home :) It was a great adventure, and we had lots of fun! But we should probably have prepared better, hehe... . Though I'm glad I did it, I don't think I'll do it again (this I also had to promise my mother, who nearly had a heart-attack when I told her. After the trip was over....)
To finish off, a couple of pictures of our Siesta's. They were very much appreciated by us on the road (/tracks).