ljubljana by hitchhiking (and 50mm)

mid july i went to ljubljana by hitchhiking, i hitchhiked already a few times, but never such long distance. from zurich its about 750km. i got 16 different rides on both ways. 16 totally different people, from a doctor to a montage-employee working on an assembly line, to the first hippie in a slowenian suburb, to a man working for the hungarian embassy and so on and on. but as different they were, still they all had something in common. they were all as open-minded to give a hitchhiker a ride. 

you got the feeling of getting to know society better, everyone has it’s own history and it’s own problems. you start sharing something, i think it’s called empathy.

and i learned to do conversation. i’ver never been a good small-talker, usually it fastly got quiet around me without a real subject i could discuss about. after a few rides i started learning the beginner questions, good-to-start-withs like where do you go, what do you do, and usually this is just the take-off to a complete different subject.

i spent two nights on fuelstations because i couldn’t get a further ride during the night, but that’s the risk you take when hitchhiking and it’s not that bad. the first time i locked myself in a toilet and slept for two or three hours because it was the only warm place there. and the second night, on my way back, i didn’t sleep at all. first i bought a weekly-newspaper, started reading outside in the cold, but then the lady from the shop came out and told me to come inside, joining her while she was working. she was really busy, doing all the stuff alone, but we kept talking and finally in the morning when she was finished, we even had breakfast together. 

as soon as you start talking with people their empathy starts growing and with this, their willing to help you. often they took me even further then they had to go theirself. or once a woman gave me the phonenumber of her daughter, who’s living in london. i should contact her she said. don’t know really what i should write, but it was so cute of her.

by the way, i posted an album on facebook, watch it here.