Collecting Moments

Before my friend turned 30 the sun finally greeted us in Portugal after 9 days of traveling all the way from Berlin!

Before my friend turned 30 , she made a plan to reach Portugal in two days. We were trying to hitch out of the petrol station not far away from Carcassonne in France when that Portuguese truck pulled in. I decided to try my Spanish: - Portugal? - Sí. - Pero hoy Portugal? - No. - Mañana? - Sí. - Podemos viajar contigo? - Sí, pero voy a descargar en Toulouse. - Duermes en Toulouse a noche? - No, en Irun, España. So, he's going to stop in Irun for the night and then go to Portugal tomorrow, I said to my friend, and we got into the truck that two days later brought us to Celorico da Beira in the center of Portugal. It’s hard to describe the incredible experience we had traveling for two days with our hero driver Carlos. We had a lot of fun! I think we’ve heard that song ten times during the trip. And the word “hierba” was repeated one hundred times. And I also learned that “un sexo es un sexo” and that “a todo el mundo gusta el sexo” and it was part of just a small talk dur

Before my friend turned 30 , we hitched an old van with a lovely Dutch couple, two dogs and the whole Plane of Freedom inside. “If you want to learn to trust the world, you have to be in the world!”

Before my friend turned 30 a very kind driver saved us from freezing cold at an absolutely hopeless (non)hitchhiking spot somewhere in France. We also managed not to get a heart attack traveling for three hours with Bep, a 79-year old Dutch woman from Australia who hadn’t driven on the left side for 30 years. She shared a lot of wisdom with us. About life: “If there’s a problem, there’s always a solution” About the Holocaust: - Mom, there're people crying there, you need to do something. - No, Bep, these are animals. They came back in the same cattle wagons and when I saw them getting off the train I said to my Mom: - I told you, there were people there! They were skeletons, literally skin on bones. They all had very long arms and legs. There were women with babies who looked like skinned rabbits. About the war: My father always said "Don't forget that Germans are our neighbours!". Through the whole war there were two Polish guys hiding in the attic of o

Before my friend turned 30 the rain and cold stopped us in Arlon for a couple of days. The rest was needed!

Before my friend turned 30 , I learned that green bananas are transported in big trucks from Antwerp to Prague and have to be kept there for two weeks until they get yellow. The czech driver was so much afraid of us that he interrogated us for half an hour before we could get into his truck: - Who are you? - Hitchhikers. - What do you do? - Computer programming. - Where’s your computer? - In the backpack. - Are you robbers? - No. Seemed like our answers were persuasive enough and we managed to travel with him all the way to the mysterious town in Belgium called “L-ee-g-e”. Today we accidently traveled 75 km to the north so that we could go 200 km to the south with eight lifts (two of them in the long-distance trucks).

Before my friend turned 30 we tried to hitch out of Dusseldorf but were stopped by the astronauts who’d arrived to that spot before us. Staying is part of moving...