I am totally amazed at people. Even when everything seems to go wrong, someone makes something nice happen. And this time it was nicer than I could ever expect.I left my good company in Århus on Tuesday evening, right after the farewell reception at the summer course (= free food and booze). I had found a very cheap ticket (in Denmark they are called "Orange Tickets") to the border, leaving at 8 p.m., so I took the train and arrived in Padborg at 11 p.m.. Everything was dark and I had no idea where to sleep, but I was confident I'd have found a place. So I started walking in the darkness, until I spotted a sign indicating a forest. I followed it and I arrived close to the woods, probably the same woods that mark the border. After having tried to camp on what was definitely meant to be a grazing pasture for sheep, since when I tried to enter it I got an electric shock (!) from the fence I couldn't see in the darkness, I got to a havekoloni, i.e. a relatively big area of little huts surrounded by heavily cultivated vegetable gardens. I peacefully pitched my tent there, confident that I'd be able to find some water close to the houses the following morning. The plan was to get up very early, so that nobody would report my tent, although very unlikely, and I set my alarm at 6 a.m. Sleeping was hard, and from very hot it got quite cold during the night, and then hot again after sunrise. I almost preferred camping in Iceland, where it is always cold anyway at around bedtime...The following morning I realised the ground where I had pitched my tent was covered with raspberry bushes, so I had a very nice, free breakfast (see pic)! The next thing was to find water, but I could strangely find none around the garden huts. I wondered what those people use to water their plants with. So I started walking back to the village, where I finally found a garden tab and could wash my face and fill in my bottle with precious water. I had checked the map on the internet the day before, so I had a kind of idea where the motorway was, or at leas where Germany was, so I slowly started moving toward it, under the amazed eyes of the local population, who would stare at me as if the had never seen a backpacker before. Well, I guess I really looked like I was going to walk to Germany - but that wasn't too far from what I did.
I reached the toll zone, where apparently a lot of trucks had to drive through to declare their cargo. A little beyond it, the road led to the E45 motorway. I reached a good spot where cars could have pulled over, and stuck my thumb up. I waited something like 3 hours and changed spot a couple of times, I shitted in the bushes after I found interesting big leaves suitable as toilet paper, and exhausted, I ate all my food and drank almost all my water. Absolutely nobody had stopped, cars were really few, and truck drivers wouldn't even bother to look at me from their majestic high seats. I started thinking that maybe I should have gone into the toll parking lot and ask the drivers directly, but it was huge there and people would pop up and get very fast into their road monsters, so it was hard to get in touch with them. I hiked back to the village and down into the other ordinary street leading to Flensburg. This hiking took me a long time, but eventually I got there and not long afterwards a nice man with his two young daughters in the back pulled over. We just told each other that we were going to Tyskland, Germany, and that was enough for me. He didn't look Danish, and he told me he was Albanian from Kosovo. We exchanged nice words and meanwhile he kindly brought me to the entrance of the motorway, which was not where he was going. I soon realised that it was impossible to hitch on that spot, and I moved over down on the motorway, reaching what vaguely seemed to be a resting area, but was not. At least there was some room for cars to pull over. Everybody was driving very fast, and I was hoping to be noticed by those who had just entered the motorway and were driving slowlier. Pretty soon a German guy pulled over, and I jumped in. I told him I wanted to go anywhere South, and that I absolutely wanted to get away from that spot. He said he was going to Schleswig, but eventually brought me all the way to Rendsburg. He was an architect driving from one construction site to the other, and on the way he told me the story of his life, his studies, the army, the history of the Bundesland Schleswig-Holstein, and most importantly, his buildings, and eventually his vacation plans. The last site he had to visit was a big bakery, where they were building a new part, which was supposed to turn old unsold bread into animal feed. He talked long to the baker and got out with two sandwitches, cakes and a new water bottle. For me, he said. It was not necessary, I said. Well, free lunch today, I didn't expect it!In Rendsburg I was released at the train station, where I could look at the city map and finally go to a real toilet. I checked the trains, but the train to Hamburg (90km away) cost 20€, and that was a lot. I had little over 20€ with me, and decided to save it for the end of the day, and see what would have happened. I texed Denise that I hoped to be either in Hamburg or in Hannover in the evening, and that she should try to find me an emergency accommodation through CouchSurfing. It was already 2 p.m. and I started walking to the next village, where I could get to the motorway. I walked for almost one hour, under the Channel Tunnel and under heavy rain. Eventually I reached a spot where a fairly laid-back-looking guy in an old car picked me up. He told me he would have brought me 3 km further towards Hamburg, and I accepted, hoping he would have brought me to a better spot. In fact he drove me backwards, 6 km before Rendsburg, but to a spot that was supposed to be very good, he said. There was a big parking lot and the motorway right next to it. The guy told me he ran a milk farm with 1000 cows, and that because of that and his 2 kids and ex-wife, that was what his life would have looked like for quite a long time. Although he was only 10 years older than me, he said he envied me and the years of youth, and that everybody should get going and see the world. I perceived a great emotion flowing in his words. Before dropping me out at the parking lot, he took his wallet out and said he was gonna give me something. At first I thought he wanted to give me a visit card, to let him know how my journey had gone; but then I saw that he was checking his notes, and they were all 50€'s... he shelled out one 50€ note to me, and I said that I couldn't accept it, and seeing that he was damned serious, I said that it was 50€, spinnst du, are you kidding. He yelled nimm es, oder ich steck's dir in den Schuh, take it or I'll stick it into your shoe, so I took it and hugged him. Then he said that he was going to drive to that street later at 6, to see if I had had my luck.I stood on the roundabout for at least two hours, and although the sign pointed at Hamburg, apparently nobody was going anywhere close to there. Two cars bound to Kiel pulled over, that I had to refuse, and nobody else, until at 5 pm a young rollie-smoking kid offered me a ride back to Rendsburg. I asked him to drop me at the station, and there I checked how much the cheapest ticket to Halle/Saale was. 55€. Now I almost had 70€ with me and I thought that that was the best way to spend that money that I had so surprisingly earned, so I bought the ticket and I sat 6 hours in the train, until I arrived in Halle at 0:16, where Denise picked me up and brought home.Well, I didn't expect to find such a few rides in a country with so many hitch-hikers. Although I was in some quite good positions, I didn't talk to any truck driver going long distances, and almost nobody else stopped. But those who stopped were far kinder than I could imagine. These people saved me and showed me a great piece of humanity, and suddenly turned a bad day, where I stood in the burning heat for most of the day and I also got a nice deal of rain poured down on me, into an amazing adventure blessed by luck.Next step: Saturday 25th Denise and I will use the weekend ticket to go as far as the first Dutch town beyond the border, Enschede, will surf a couch there, and the following day we will try our luck on the road to Leiden. It's only 2h by car, and apparently it's very easy to hitch in the Netherlands, so let's see what happens!
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