Hitchhiking Level: Final Boss – A Photo Story

One of the things I love about travelling and hitchhiking especially is that I’m confronted with new challenges every day.  There isn’t a day where I can just stay in my comfort zone or not learn anything new. When I started travelling in January 2013 I would have never hitchhiked. I would have been embarrassed to ask for rides on a petrol station. I would have never hitchhikend alone.

None of the above is difficult for me nowadays but I did learn something new today: Hitchhiking with a camera team is a whole new challenge. First of all: We had to find a car where three people, the cameraman, the reporter in charge and me fit in. Second, the driver had to be okay with being filmed. And last but not least our driver was not allowed to drive too fast since the car from the German Public-TV didn’t do more than 120 km/h and had to film our drivers car from the outside sometimes.

But we managed the challenge. By speaking to people outside of a petrol station a little outside of Berlin I actually found a driver so fast that the cameraman didn’t even had it on tape. So we had to do the whole “Hey are you going direction Prague? Yes? Really, can you take me? Oh how cool. You know, there are two more people who would like to join. And a camera acutally.” thing again… But luckly Wieland, our driver,  was very friendly and the most patient person one could imagine. He was so perfect, had such a good story to tell, that I’m sure people will think the whole thing is scripted when they see it on TV. I promise you it’s not!

Anyways, a really good thing about having a camerateam with me is that I finally have some picture of myself hitchhiking…

^{Preparing a sign (since we had to shot this scene a few times this was probably the best sign I ever made)}

^{The cameraman really wanted to have the standing-on-the-road-with-a-sign-pictures before I started to talk to people directly. Of course nobody stoped. But I like the pictures anyways.}

^{Our perfect driver Wieland}

^{And finally: Prague!}

A European New Years Eve

Since a few years me and a dutch friend who I met years ago in Latvia, have a tradition: every year we celebrate new years eve together, somewhere in Europe with people we meet there. This year I nearly chickened out: too much work had to be done for Frollein Europa, spending a few days abroad didn’t really fit in my working schedule… But in the end we just decided, to spend half a day every day working. And that I’ll write a blogpost about Prague.

As always Eline and I used couchsurfing for traveling. First, we stayed with a really nice host who had tonnes of Christmas cookies and a wide knowledge about Prague. But this isn’t the story I want to tell you, I want to take you to my New Years Eve.

I hope you enjoy.

 Former Glory

The Strahov Students dormitory is located high on a mountain above Prague, right next to the Strahov Stadium, the world biggest stadium. In CSSR times thousands of men in white underwear danced here to show the strength of the Sowjet Union.

Today little remains to the former glory. Concrete walls scratch the blue sky. The ten dormitory blocks aren’t scratching the sky, nor do they remind to former glory. They must have been ugly from the moment they were built. One after another they stay in two rows, distinguishable form each other just by the black number above the entrance. Sport grounds are located between the two rows and I didn’t even need to close my eyes to imagine seeing young men preparing hard to contribute their little piece in the competition of systems.