Journey To The Holy Land

Monday 16th of July;

Jorine already arrived early at 8 in the morning but we left at around 9:30 because I was late with packing

Our first destination first was Munchen, to visit a friend of mine I met in Laos, but at the last moment he wrote me that he had a big test on thuesday so monday would be a bad day to comeby. Friends of Jorine were heading to Brussels to stay with someone they knew so we planned to hitch in the direction of Belgium through Holland; which turned out to be a dumb decision.

After 11 hours of hitchhiking over small distances we stranded at 300 km further from Groningen at a McDonalds near Veldhoven. We should have taken the road through Germany.

Coincidentally we met there 2 French backpackers (Lucas and Susan, thanks guys) just coming back from a festival 'Summer Jam' who had a spare tent with them. We found a nice location near a small forrest and slept there with the 4 of us in the 2 tents. 4 Hitchhiking backpackers with dreadlocks, well ok I don't have dreadlocks but it felt like it because we got a ride in a cabrio that day, but Lucas, Susan and Jorine have.

The next day we were certain to make it to Zurich that day. After being lucky to being picked up be a dutch truck driver at the German border we had less luck because we were in a traffic jam for 5 !! hours getting dropped of close to Frankfurt. From 22:00 to 2:00 we still had 2 rides

getting stranded at a motel sharing it with 2 german hitchhikers (for 40 euro) who were making their way to Vienna, Austria. Bastian and Lisa and almost a drunken truckdriver who wanted to sleep in the same 2 person room, but we kicked him out because he had his own bed in his truck.

Wednesday we planned to leave early but started around 9:30, first person I asked brought us to past the Swiss border near Basel. We had a flat tire on the way but fixed it. He also bought us some food and a coffee which was very nice. After that we were in no time in Zurich centre taking the train to Affoltern a small suburb where Marieke lived.

Marieke is a cousin of Jorine and speaks dutch aswell. Jorine was going to the Gunter festival with her the following days. We could stay there for a night and had a nice pasta meal. Marieke is a nice woman with 2 busy young children, and that day I witnissed how much it takes to raise children.

Tomorrow I will leave early trying to make it to a small place called Vada under Pisa in Italy to visit a good friend of mine; Jelke, who is working there.