From Lausanne I headed to Passau in Germany. Maybe not the first coice of every tourist to Germany, but I went to visit a friend (Mareike) I had made in Mexico. I took the train from Lausanne just to another village so I could get easy access to the highway and get my thumb on! This is an advertisment for something in the Lausanne train station that reminds me of my father in an old picture form a costume party!
Getting to the highway was easy enough and after 10 minutes a nice lady gave me a ride to a roundabout where i thought I would never get picked up.... there were also cops circling like piranhas and I was a little nervous...then I got a rideand everything was smooth, I met lots of nice people and also rode in a super truck the inside was all velvet:
After several more rideas I was at a truckstop on the ring road around Munich (Munchen)...which begs me to wonder why we dont pronounce city names in their local languages? I think it would make the world a more interesting place. And make it easier to get around.
So as darkenss came I had a great view of the stars but no view of a ride. The highway I wanted was off the ring road and not many trucks were taking that turn. I thought I would walk to the turn off and after a couple hundred meters some friendly policemen kindly suggested I get my ass off the side of the highway and go back to the truckstop.
The truckstop had a few fast food counters and some tables and chairs and I was informed that it was open all night which was good as it was below 0 outside! I took off my boots and put up my feet to relax... 2 minutes later an angry German Lady, obvioulsy the night manager came up to me quite angry and demended I take my feet off the chair... not a good start to a place I wanted to stay all night! She was quite scary... like a movie stereotype... One of several abnout to be shattered.... So 10 minutes later she comes back and asks if I am hitching and if I am planning to spend the night...I was worried but said yes to both, and she took me around the corner and showed me where I could sleep! she said she doesnt want people near the door to have a bad impression but I can sleep on a padded bench in the back! She was really sweet in the end!
In the mroing she came to wake me with a tea and muffin, and gave me more snacks for the road!
I was on the road before sunlight and got to see Orion's belt, a favorite constellation...still no rides though so i took a gamble and cut across some fields for a few kms, got to a small town and found the highway entrance.... form there it was off to Passau! This sign made the whole night worthwhile!
The rides the previous day were great, people were feeding me, a guy bought me a road map to all of Europe, (I dont knwop how I was hitching without a map) and the next day was even nicer. A couple people brought me a litlle out of their way and my last ride was going 5km and decided to take me the 60km to Passau. It was a little scary as he went 180 for a bit on the Autobahn, but here I am!
On the Europen roadways they have lots of signs with lines through them, when you leave a town they have the name of the town with a line through it, when you leave the highway it is a picture of a highway with a line through it, and in germany they havea picture of the speed limit with a line through it, then people go very fast!!!
So I made it safe to Passau and met up with Mareike to explore a bit of southeastern Germany...
Does anyone who knows Yiddish find this sign funny?
I always thought Yiddish was very similar to German but it is a lot les than I believed. I did knowsome words, table, window etc., and some of the grammar is the same but thats about it. German, at least in the south is a beautiful and soft language, not what I was expecting at all. Too many movies! One funny thing is they give you balnkets at outdoor cafes to keep warm!
I was staying with a friend who took me out to a 90's night! something I didnt know existed yet, and it was lots of fun... we went out somewhere everynight, made me miss university! One evening we went for a walk to Austria...
Here was a yummy treat!
Here is the inside of the Cathedral in Passau which houses the largest organ in Europe (in the back)
This is the tip of the town, where three rivers meet, one being the Danube. (Yes I kow you can only see two!)
Passau was lots of fun, I met lots of locals, (by locals I mean Germans as they came from all over the country) and it was great being able to talk to them all... All the people I met spoke better English than most English Quebecers speak French, and they dont have the language all around them. It was very impressive to see... But as I headed east that started to change :)
