Hitchhiking to France

First of my adventures was my attempt to hitchhike from my hometown of Groningen, Holland to St. Jean, France. I had an amazing time and simultaneously it restored my faith in humanity! Many thanks to all the people that helped me along the way!

Making my way to France was surprisingly easy! It completely restored my faith in humanity!

I’ve always been very curious about hitchhiking. Is it still possible in 2011? Do people still trust each other enough? How long will I be waiting? Will it be dangerous?

It turned out all my fears were unfounded. On the 1st of Sept. at around 8 a.m. I left my student flat and made my way to the hitchhiking location in Groningen, Netherlands. After about 15 minutes a car stopped and a young Danish guy picked me up and helped me out to get to a gas station on the highway. From here things went very fast! At the gas stations I was able to talk to people and show them that I wasn’t some kind of chainsaw killing psychopath. The first person I approached helped me out and brought me halfway through my small country. From gas station to gas station I arrived in Hilversum fairly fast. Not having to wait any longer than ten or twelve minutes at a time. Around noon I was at my brothers house and spent the rest of the day there with him and his wife. After a nice warm meal and some good conversation we called it a night. Early the next morning my brother dropped me off on the highway again and my adventure continued. Before I knew it I was in Belgium and arrived at the French border. The first couple I approached turned out to be a Dutch couple who were driving all the way to Paris. This was my first destination so I felt very lucky! The Dutch couple had always talked about picking up a hitchhiker but never did. Now that I approached them they were excited to help me out.
A few hours later I thanked the nice couple and wished them a nice romantic weekend in Paris. For me the real challenge started now. I didn’t know any French at all except for “Omelette Du Fromage” which turned out not to be the correct answer to everything!

I felt a culture shock coming up as I all of a sudden couldn’t communicate with anyone anymore and felt lonely. As I ate a sandwich with nothing but old paté I felt myself wondering what I was doing here and how I was ever going to keep this up for longer than a few days. I smiled at myself and my own thoughts as I recognized that this was exactly what I knew I was going to feel at some point. I got up, enjoyed Paris, met a few tourists as I felt the feeling fade. I slept in my hammock that night in the outskirts of the city between two shaky trees and survived the first day outside in a foreign country.
The next day I made my way to Chartres where I spent the day enjoying the cathedral and the freedom of doing whatever the hell I wanted to do! I met Gerard, a 66 year old Frenchman who seemed intrigued by my hitchhiking adventure. He invited me to ride along to his home in Bergerac which is in the south of France. Gerard couldn’t speak any English and my French still didn’t get past ordering beer and explaining that I was hitchhiking by sticking up my thumb. After a few hours Gerard revealed that he knew a little German and his first sentence turned out to apply perfectly to my new lifestyle. “Er macht was er will!”. He kept repeating. So now we could talk a little and we had a lot of fun imitating famous historical German figures all day!

After a long day of driving he gave me food and shelter and the next day he showed me around the amazing town of Bergerac, which was home to Cyrano de Bergerac. This historical person became famous because of the play written after his death also called “Cyrano de Bergerac”. This play was then turned into a movie named “Cyrano” starring Gerard Depardieu, which I had seen on a rainy sunday a long time ago. It talks about an embarrassed soldier/poet who romances his cousin by proxy.
Gerard, who drove me all across France dropped me off the next morning at a promising location and it didn’t take more than six cars passing me before I was on the road again.
A few rides later I met a woman who used to hitchhike herself through Africa and didn’t mind telling me about it in many chaotic details. After getting lost repeatedly we arrived in Orthez quite late. She gave me the key to her spare apartment and told me I could stay as long as I pleased, she showed me where to find the food and left me as the king of the castle!

The next morning I felt like moving on as I was eager to start my pilgrimage in St. Jean. It took me another five or six rides to cross the small distance left. The closer you get to your destination the harder it becomes to reach your goal. For example, when you’re far away everyone is going south, but this changes with every mile that you get closer to your destination. In St. Jean my slow and painfully acquired French vocabulary went down the drain as I suddenly became surrounded by tonnes of American and Canadian pilgrims. There were pilgrims from many nationalities and I had to make the switch back from speaking simple english sentences (which was a lot easier when communicating with non english speaking frenchmen to speaking in correct English.

My faith in the goodness of the human race has been restored by my experiences hitchhiking! I discovered that many people love to extend a helping hand, all you have to do is ask!
I learned that it is important to look clean and shaven if you want to be picked up fast.
Though the most important car-stopper was definitely smiling and making contact with the driver in some way.

Hitchhiking is still very much alive! and I will continue to do it after my pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.