On our way to Sweden!

Packed and ready to go

Last sunday morning it was time for us to start hitchhiking out of Vienna and move towards the north. We decided to take two weeks for the trip so we have plenty of time to visit friends along the way. Our first stop was still in Austria. We spend 2 nights in Wankham to catch up with people there. Getting there was really easy and we never had to wait long. Combining this with the great weather it was a blast to get back to hitchhiking.
The next stop of the trip is Prien am Chiemsee, where we are now. The first ride we took made us realize immediately that it was going to be our lucky day. The man that picked us up started talking about how he did the same when he was young the moment we got in the car. He drove us to a great gas-station on the highway from where we could get a long distance ride towards Germany. To bring us to this spot he had to take a short detour but that wasn't all. When we left the car he gave us some pocket money for the trip. People are awesome! After this ride it didn't take long until we were on the move again.
The last stretch to Prien we went off the highway and went through the countryside. We experienced that it was our lucky day once more when we bought a sandwich in a bakery and the woman working there ended up giving us lot of extra pastries to take with us on our trip! If that wasn't enough we hitchhiked a train the last 25km. In Germany you can buy the tickets in the train and when we wanted to buy them we got told that it's ok and we didn't have to pay.
Tomorrow morning we will make our way to Leiden, the Netherlands to stay there again for a few days. We hope we have just as much as luck the rest of our trip.

                         

Time for new adventures!

Almost half a year went by since I last posted anything on this blog so it's time to revive it.
In the beginning Vienna was pretty overwhelming, at least for me. The city is pretty massive and we could only navigate with public transport. If we would go somewhere on foot we felt like lost puppies. Luckily we met a lot of friends at the couchsurfmeetings. They showed us around the city and made it this place feel like home. Over the months these people became really good friends with whom we still hang out a few times a week.

Within the first month of moving to this city I found a job in a cafe/bakery in our street. It is the only store in our neighborhood that is open on sundays so we spend our afternoons drinking a coffee there. One time we asked if they needed new employers and the next week I could start full time. The place is about 40 years old and the interior hasn't changed since then. Most of the regular customers are also from that era so they fit right in. I managed to improve my German a lot while working there and met a lot of good people. One of the more interesting things about the place is that it's the only store where people can buy Vodka and other alcoholic drinks at 6:30 in the morning. This results in a lot of intersting people that frequent the bakery. Most of them are nice people who are just down on their luck but some had to be kicked out, for example someone peeing their pants while trying to buy bread. Luckily that only happened once! All in all it was a good learning experience, but I had to quit because of the following:
WE'RE GOING TO SWEDEN!

We both missed traveling more then we like Vienna so we started searching the depths of the internet for a new opportunity. We decided on Sweden for our next destination and then the hunt began. On WWOOF.org (Worldwide opportunities on organic farms) we found a place in Uddebo, a small alternative town about a 100km from Gothenburg) where they need help with renovations, creating a vegetable plot, build greenhouses and organize music events. The building is an old school-building owned by a young artist family. We will stay there for spring and summer if everything goes according to plan. We will leave on the 1st of april and take 2 weeks to visit friends on our way. Expect a lot of new pictures, hitchhiking stories and updates in the upcoming months!

On the road at last!

15-03-2013 After one last night in my local pub with all my friends it was finally time to go. I boarded the train to Utrecht and from there I took the train to Cologne. Right next to me in the train was a mother with twins, two five year old boys. At first I was annoyed by their very active behaviour but after twinty minutes they calmed down and started talking to me. Before departure they went up to their mum and asked if I could be their new dad, which made her face turn bright red. When I arrived in Cologne I was hoping that I would have had a response on couchsurfing, but sadly that wasn’t the case. The only responses I got were people who said they allready had someone staying over for today, so my first mission in Cologne was finding a place to sleep. I went to the Tourist Information across the mainstation and when I asked if they knew of any cheap hostels the girl behind the desk looked worried. Apparently there are some big events in Cologne today that I didn’t know of and the entire city is almost fully booked. Luckily there was a bed left in a hostel just outside the city center called the Black Sheep Hostel. The downside of this is that it set me back 30 euro’s. I got myself a bed in a six person dorm and share the room with some nice people. After I ditched my backpack I went for a walk through the city to see some sights. When I went back to the hostel I checked couchsurfing again and saw there was a meetup on the other side of the city. After 1,5 hours of walking I managed to find the cafe where the couchsurfers of cologne met up. We had a few drinks and talked about random stuff all night and when it was time to go home I got offered a car-ride back to the hostel by a girl who also said that if I wanted to stay another day in Cologne I could sleep on her couch. The next day the weather was looking good so I decided to hitch out of the city. After 2 hours of walking I finally found a place where I could hitch a ride and after 20 minutes I got my first ride ever. I got dropped off around 60km south of Cologne at a gasstation on the longest highway of Germany, the a3, that leads to Munnich. Im currently typing this from the gassstation as they offer 1 hour of free WiFi. I have yet to figure out where I'd go from here...