It started out as a lighthearted idea. In the crisp evening air of late August, a friend of mine and I were already dreaming of what we could do when the hot European summer returned. Drawing inspiration from the Danish version of the TV-show “Race Across the World”, we thought that rather than taking a plane or a train, we could hitchhike but you know, maybe we wouldn’t go to the end of the world for starters. Perhaps just to Rome or Budapest.
When I came
back to uni, I told another friend, Emma, about the idea, and she said the most
wonderful thing: “Why wait?”. We had a week of break coming up in between
classes in mid-November and what better way to clear your head from all the
stress of school than to go on a little adventure? So, we created a competition
in which anyone from our physics program could enter. The rules were simple: Our
only means of transportation would be the kindness of strangers picking us up
or our own feet, we had to do it in groups of two or three (no one hitchhikes
alone) and the finish line was Brandenburger Tor in Berlin.
We were twelve
students who met at a hitchhiking stop on the edge of Copenhagen all equipped
with some cardboard, markers, and disposable cameras. Emma and I had become
quite anxious about the whole plan as covid cases were on the rise in all of
Europe. What if nobody wanted to pick us up? What if everybody would be waiting
for hours freezing in the gray November cold? What if none of us would make it
out of Copenhagen? Well, all of these worries went away when everybody made it
out of Denmark on the first day.
At a reststop just before the Little Belt Bridge
Emma and I reached Flensburg that night with the help of four lifts. A middle-aged couple who had travelled immensely throughout their life took us across Zealand and Funen and supplied us with good conversation, heaps of stories and some candy for our journey ahead. From there, a man with his mother and then a Danish-German family got us to the German border. Finally, an elderly woman drove us to the doorstep of our hostel in Flensburg where coincidently another one of the groups had made it a few hours earlier, so we put the competition on hold for the night and went out.
Even though
it was a race, you also got points for different rides and sightseeing along
the way, so when all of two groups made it to Berlin on the first night, Emma
and I knew we were not going to win on speed. To better our chances, we decided
to take a little detour. A careful father whose daughter of our age had also
gone on a few hitchhiking adventures herself, worried about what kind of people
might pick up two young girls like Emma and I and so he decided to take us from
Flensburg to the outskirts of Neumünster. From there, we hoped to hitch a ride
straight east with a very specific destination in mind. We grew impatient as
more than hour went by, the longest we had waited so far. Then, we spotted a
van with Polish plates and went over to plead the driver to take us with them.
The father from Flensburg probably wouldn’t have been too happy about our
choice of ride but these five Polish gentlemen, workers on their way home from
Denmark, were perfectly nice, extremely funny and spoke flawless English.
Keeping warm with some coffee while waiting in Neumünster
The sun was
already gone when we arrived in Stettin, located in the northwestern corner of
Poland. There city was soaked in a thick mist of rain and apparently Poland is
just colder than Germany (scientific fact according to Emma) but nonetheless we
made the most of our few hours there exploring the old city center and walking
along the lonely river. We also stuffed ourselves with as many pierogis (Polish
dumplings) as possible before heading to Berlin on the third day.
Going out in Stettin, Poland
Pierogi for lunch while trying to hitch a ride from trucks passing by
Even though
the stretch from Stettin to Berlin was the shortest one distance-wise in
comparison to the other two days, it was the most difficult one to complete. It
required asking a man to take us out of Stettin despite him not heading in that
direction, wandering on truck-backroads between gas stations, cross the Polish-German
border three times in the car of a Ukrainian man who only spoke five words of
English, getting picked up by a carpenter on his way home from work while walking
across a highway-bridge with no sidewalk and then getting a final lift by a social
worker to the outskirts of Berlin Mitte before walking the last six kilometers to
Brandenburger Tor but we made it!
Reaching the finish line
Emma and I
got fourth place out of six but took the cake for longest distanced covered and
most rides. But that really didn’t matter. The race was just a mean
through which to do something incredibly fun. When everyone had reached Berlin,
each hitchhiking team as well as other students flying in or taking the train
to meet us, we went out to good dinners and eclectic bars. Scoured through
secondhand shops and museums. Played hide-and-seek in Kreuzberg with the help
of Snap Map (also a good tool to keep track of each other while hitchhiking). Listened
to jazz, sang karaoke, and dibbed our toes in Berlin’s nightclub scene.
Heading back to Copenhagen, we opted for a bus and ferry ride rather than our thumbs. Classes were calling but Rome or Budapest is still on the table come summer or perhaps even further than that.
Out in Berlin
At a toilet-themed bar
On the ferry ride home