Date: 28th of June 2015
Route: Budapest – Vienna
Vehicles hitchhiked: 2
This time we managed to start hitchhiking in the morning. After we ate pancakes with white cheese for breakfast, Etelka gave us a lift to a petrol station situated near the motorway leading to Vienna (btw the city is called “Bécs” in Hungarian).
Etelka packed a few pancakes for us to eat on the way. We didn't have cutlery with us, so we came up with an idea to ask for plastic knives in the station café. Since then, asking in restaurants became our standard way to get something to eat with.
We met two boys who were hitchhiking next to the exit of the petrol station. Well, we both agreed that they had to be inexperienced, since they had chosen such a bad place to stand. Knowing better, we walked towards fuel dispensers, and started asking drivers who were tanking up there if they could take us towards Vienna. Unfortunately, after a few minutes we were told by a security guard to go somewhere else. So, we ended up next to the exit of the station as well...
We didn't have much hope of catching a car going directly to Vienna, and everything we wanted was to be taken to the next petrol station or the first bus stop on the way. As luck would have it, when a car stopped several minutes later, it turned out that the driver was going through Vienna
:-)
He was an amiable Hungarian guy who worked in Berlin; he had became a dad not so long before. He said that he always advertised on blablacar.com that he had free places in the car. This time no one had responded to his offer, so when he saw us, he decided to take us, in order to have someone to talk to while driving. So lucky!
This time we managed to start hitchhiking in the morning. After we ate pancakes with white cheese for breakfast, Etelka gave us a lift to a petrol station situated near the motorway leading to Vienna (btw the city is called “Bécs” in Hungarian).
Etelka packed a few pancakes for us to eat on the way. We didn't have cutlery with us, so we came up with an idea to ask for plastic knives in the station café. Since then, asking in restaurants became our standard way to get something to eat with.
We met two boys who were hitchhiking next to the exit of the petrol station. Well, we both agreed that they had to be inexperienced, since they had chosen such a bad place to stand. Knowing better, we walked towards fuel dispensers, and started asking drivers who were tanking up there if they could take us towards Vienna. Unfortunately, after a few minutes we were told by a security guard to go somewhere else. So, we ended up next to the exit of the station as well...
We didn't have much hope of catching a car going directly to Vienna, and everything we wanted was to be taken to the next petrol station or the first bus stop on the way. As luck would have it, when a car stopped several minutes later, it turned out that the driver was going through Vienna
:-)
He was an amiable Hungarian guy who worked in Berlin; he had became a dad not so long before. He said that he always advertised on blablacar.com that he had free places in the car. This time no one had responded to his offer, so when he saw us, he decided to take us, in order to have someone to talk to while driving. So lucky!
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| Crossing the Hungary-Austria border |
We covered a distance of more than 200 km in 2 hours. We were left on a petrol station near Vienna, where we ate pancakes, and then we managed to find a couple who gave us a lift to the city centre.
While walking around Vienna, we were revising German vocabulary. Both of us had had the occasion to learn this language for a few years at school, but we had forgotten a lot since then.
It was hot, and we were carrying heavy backpacks, so when we were crossing near the Volksgarten (the park in the centre of Vienna), we decided to stay there for some time and relax. I was reading Dan Brown's “Inferno”, but fell asleep after some time.
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| Maia took a photo of me when I was sleeping |
Meanwhile, Maia was learning Japanese using the Anki program. She was going to start working in Japan in September. As a preparation for this event, she kept learning the language for at least two hours a day (she had been having such a routine for about two years!). Whenever she had time, in cars or in parks, she practised speaking Japanese, or reading and writing kanji characters.
After two hours, we started sightseeing again. I did Urdhva Dhanurasana (the pose that Maia had wanted to do on the tower in Budapest) on the stairs of The Rathaus (meaning “Town Hall”), then we admired Vienna's architecture (in the meantime looking for free wifi in order to download a German-English dictionary), then took some fresh water from a “Trinkwasser” (Drinking Water) stand, listened to a man playing on bottles near the U-Bahn station, and came back to the park. This time we sat near the Theseus Temple.
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| Urdhva Dhanurasana in front of the Rathaus |
There was a public toilet there, where you had to put a 50-cent coin in a door lock if you wanted to use it. I followed Maia's advice to wait until someone is leaving and slip through the door without paying. A few women who were standing behind me found it brilliant, and did the same.
We were supposed to meet with Doris and Matthias around 11 p.m. because they were coming back home late on that day. We walked a few kilometres to get to their flat; we were tired, so we stopped several times on the way.
We were supposed to meet with Doris and Matthias around 11 p.m. because they were coming back home late on that day. We walked a few kilometres to get to their flat; we were tired, so we stopped several times on the way.
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| We were tired and stopped several times on the way |
When we finally reached the destination, we were greeted by the smiling couple, who lived in a very modern and spacious flat. Unfortunately, we had very little energy, so we went to sleep after chatting with them only for a short while.
At any rate, we were going to stay in Vienna for one more night.
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