Day 8 – The Mad Hatter

Date: 3rd of July 2015

Route: Frankfurt am Main – Fischbach

Vehicles hitchhiked: 4

Following Markus's advice we decided to try hitchhiking on the Frankfurt Airport. In order to get there we had to buy very expensive bus tickets (4.55€ for one!). Although there were lots of cars on the airport, the majority of them was just waiting for their owners to come back from holidays. We tried hitchhiking in various places, with no luck, unfortunately.

We were sweating from heat, so we decided to leave the airport, and look for some other place where we could stand in the shade. Not having many sensible options, we ended up on a hard shoulder next to a motorway. After a few minutes, a service car stopped in front of us. Unfortunately, instead of being given a ride, we were told to go somewhere else, because it was not allowed to catch a lift in such places.

More and more time was passing, and we still hadn't driven with anyone even one kilometre... We started to be less enthusiastic, so Maia suggested that we could try synchronising waving to the drivers.

As our hitchhiking equipment, we had been carrying a couple of white A4 paper sheets, two black marker pens, and a small piece of cardboard (we put it behind paper sheets to prevent them from waggling in the wind). Thanks to that we could produce fresh cards with new inscriptions every day. That time, apart from the card saying "Luxembourg", we added another one which said “Help us! So hot”.

On the way from the airport to the motorway

Eventually, several minutes after producing the second card, an orange car pulled over. The couple who stopped, drove us to a petrol station in Ramstein-Miesenbach. As soon as we left the car, Maia noticed that she had left her hat inside. I wanted us to wait near the entrance of the petrol station for some time – I hoped that the couple would realise what had happened, and come back. In the meantime, I managed to get two sets of plastic cutlery from a bar, and we ate our second breakfast.

After some time, there was no point in waiting any longer... I wrote in my notebook “HAT FOR HONEY”, just to check if the law of attraction would work, and we wouldn't have to pay for a new hat. Meanwhile, Maia persuaded two German guys, who were heading to Scotland in order to hike there, to move their things from the back seat to the boot (so that we could sit in their car), and give us a lift to Luxembourg City.

We were left next to a supermarket. While doing the shopping there, we felt a little bit confused, since we couldn't figure out if people in that country spoke French or German (well, in the end it turned out to be Luxembourgish).

Maia wearing her new hat

Then Maia came up with a crazy idea – she made a hat for herself from a cardboard box from the supermarket. Many people who saw her wearing such an unusual thing on her head smiled, waved, or exclaimed, “Nice hat!” Moreover, we managed to hitchhike a bus – when we entered it, the driver said that we didn’t have to pay for the tickets ;-)

We hitchhiked a bus :-)

While we were walking towards a bus stop, we saw a big valley and The Grand Duchess Charlotte Bridge (or The Red Bridge) hanging over the valley. When I looked more closely at the massive construction of the bridge and its height, I felt petrified somehow.

The Grand Duchess Charlotte Bridge (on the photo it looks less scary than in reality)

On the bus stop we met a very friendly guy from Canada. While all of us were laughing about the Maia’s idea, a driver stopped her car next to us and tooted the horn. To our great surprise, he gave Maia an orange ING hat through the window (sic!)

Maia got a hat for free! Law of Attraction works ;)

Laughing even more than before, we talked in a bus with our new Canadian acquaintance; then, we said goodbyes, took a photo with him, and went with another bus to Mersch.

In the meantime, Maia threw out the previous hat. She regretted doing this soon afterwards – she said that the hand-made hat had been cooler (both meanings!) than the ING one.

A funny Canadian that we met

We sat in a park in Mersch for some time, and then we started walking to Fischbach. I didn't like the idea of going around 8 km on foot, but unfortunately no one wanted to give us a lift. Resigned and tired, we were walking along the road, and looking at yellow-black number plates moving away from us.

A park in Mersch. There was no sign saying "No yoga on the bridge" ;-)

However, even in Luxembourg, where people are said not to like even their own neighbours (not to mention foreigners), the golden rule of hitchhiking, “someone will stop sooner or later”, applies – we caught a lift. What's more, a driver took us directly to Fischbach, which was several kilometres further than his house. Well, he had studied in Germany and France, so maybe that's why he was more open to other cultures...

After we arrived at a pretty house with a Japanese roof, we waited for a while for our host Michel and his wife Hiroko; she had unfortunately twisted her ankle on that day, and they had gone to the hospital.

Waiting for our hosts

Then the five of us (their teenage daughter Mariko came back home several minutes later than her parents) had a pleasant conversation while eating dinner. Maia and I found it amazing that the girl was speaking Luxembourgish to her dad, Japanese to her mom and English to us, and she didn’t have any problems with switching the languages.

After the dinner we enjoyed listening to both women playing the grand piano. Maia was fascinated with the instrument, and she played something on it as well.

Before going to sleep, we looked at a world globe standing in our room. We realized that the part of the world which we were going to see on this trip seemed pretty tiny... There are so many other places on Earth that we dream to visit!