kate’s adventure

my introduction to the czech republic, this time, was an empty road, fields, cows. luckily it was pleasant weather for walking, because i did quite a bit of it. eventually i got some rides, a taxi picked me up and took me quite a long way, then i got someone who spoke good second-language german and proceeded to hold a running monologue with me the whole way in to the fountain in the middle of cesky budejovice, pointing out where the first railway was, where the horses were washed, the world’s first pencil factory…
salim was expecting me at 5pm, but i had such a good trip that i was there by 9am!
i passed the day dozing by the fountain, trying to figure out public phones and the czech currency, and eventually dragging my heavy bag into an information office and finding some free internet, which i used while taking regular turns round the fountain to see if salim had arrived.
in the end, he got there an hour or two early and we went to the post office, where i got my hands on the two boxes tied with twine, which held the contents of the bag i got stolen five years ago. dresses i have missed, books with bookmarks in them at places i don’t remember, toiletries that i would no longer use. photos of copenhagen, my flamenco performance and the queeruption protest in den haag! my coat, one dress and stephen’s bow tie were missing, as i more or less expected. i think i spent a couple of hours sorting everything from both packs into a box to send home, a pile to chuck and another pile to absorb into my current pack. it was harder than packing the first time!
eventually i was done and salim, his friend and i took a tram to the university dormitories where he had booked me a night. very similar to a dorm i stayed in in budapest, it was one of many bare blocks standing in a field, but inside it had people coming and going with their possessions and a thriving noticeboard which suggested a much healthier student life than anything i’ve ever experienced. the room itself was made for two, split down the middle with beds, desks, cupboard, shelves and a sink. there were showers down the hall, facing each other with no curtains, and toilets even further down, the toilet paper bolted to the wall by the sink with an ostentatious padlock. i can’t imagine it being comfortable for long periods of time, but it seems to be accepted.

they took me around the city in search of a map, and to a local bus station dinner of gulash soup and dumplings, which was rather good though it looked anything but. it’s a pleasant city with an old town ringed by small parks and what used to be a moat, very quiet and calm at night, with live music floating from many doorways. outside the old town it seems a liveable city with decent public transport, interesting bridges and no tourists.

in the morning i dragged my tired feet to the tram and easily found a nice road, but the trip was a little more difficult than the last ones. it rained in short bouts but quite heavily. i got dropped in the middle of a highway in the middle of the rain and my boots gave out as i squelched my way to the shelter of a little overpass. interestingly, i got several rides from cars with three or four people in them already, which is very rare. just as i was preparing to shelter in my tent from another rainstorm, a car of four teenage heavy metal fans picked me up and drove me what seemed to be five hundred metres, before deciding to let me wait it out in the car. it was a fun interlude, if not very helpful as the only boy amongst them took it upon himself to help me hitch, which will scare most people off! meanwhile the girls bounced and sang and played badminton with a golf ball in the rain.
at about 8pm i found myself on yet another narrow road which boasted a nice section of layback but no cars, and decided to stop for the night. it was delightful to set up my tent in a forest while it was still light. the leaf litter was soft and the trees were green and i could select a nice flat section out of sight of any road or path, where i could hear the road through the birdsong but it just served to reassure me i would be able to get out of there in the morning. and indeed i could, i woke up nice and early and even after laying around enjoying breakfast protected from the rain, i was on the road about 8.30 and in a small truck a few minutes later.
unfortunately this ride, which was promisingly long, decided to take me sideways to an autobahn when it really wasn’t necessary, and my journey soured. i was surprised by a czech motorcycle cop turning on his siren right behind me and telling me to get off the road. he was gracious enough to give me advice as to where i could go, but it wasn’t very good advice as there was nothing at all visible out that direction. after heading out the other way where at least there was a little traffic, i saw two more hitchhikers walking outside the railing of the autobahn, and limped after them, barefoot on ground that is not meant for anyone to walk on. up hill, down valley, over bridge holding on to the outside of the railing; i couldn’t see any other direction but where they were leading. eventually i caught up to them, a whole highway section later at the next on ramp. they were two boys hitching from prague to berlin for shopping, and we shared some lunch and information on the railings of the on ramp, just past the roundabout. three people together have little hope of a ride, so eventually they walked off to investigate the road and i sat on the railing singing to the empty world. just as they were heading back in defeat i got a ride, another family of three, with watermelons wandering around the floor just to make things interesting. they had room for the other two but my german wasn’t good enough to convince them to take us all. i hope they found a ride anyway…
my ride only took me to the next truck stop, and after i had asked most of the cars and trucks, none of whom were helpful, i stood at the exit, behind the barrier and hoped cars could see me on the road. however an unmarked german police car came up and decided i was too close to the road, which was my first indication that i had made it to germany. they kindly told me how dangerous it was to be within two metres of the highway barrier, though three seemed ok, and helpfully told me to walk over a kilometre down the rough, narrow side road to the on ramp. of course cars drive faster down there than they should, considering visibility is not nearly as good as on an autobahn with a whole emergency lane down each side, but rules are rules and danger is naturally governed by them.
half way down i got a ride who took me almost as far out the other side of the on ramp; at least this road was deserted so i could walk on the smooth centre line until my friendly unmarked police came and directed me again, to the only place i could possibly have been going, and then swung around yet again to order me to walk on the left.
thankfully a little two door stopped for me quite promptly, though they were quite uncommunicative until they had already taken me into the centre of dresden. at the central train station having already spent about eight hours on the road that day, i decided it wouldn’t be the end of the world if i took a train, so i spent a couple of annoying hours on the floor of my platform, but i made it to my destination, and was in berlin for my birthday.

when i finally achieved the austrian border there were a bunch of lone young travellers milling around trying to figure out how to find the last quarter of the journey, in to innsbruck. it seems i have the best german of the five of us so i rounded them up to follow someone who knew what to do, thus i ended up on a train to innsbruck and with someone to follow home to a hostel. it was all so delightfully easy, we paid the bilingual, understanding inspectors for our not-too-steep tickets on the nice shiny train and it let us off in the centre of the city with no fuss. john was making a mess of finding a tram to the hostel and i let him, entirely unconcerned as he had an address, of sorts, and it looked like it would take five minutes to walk if he gave up and let me do it. i restricted myself to translating bus drivers for him, ridiculously delighted to be able to do so.

it started raining quite seriously as soon as we got in, but the hostel was full of australians who had just finished school, and other friendly types so we were all kept amused. when the weather cleared a little i dragged john away as he was the only one expressing interest in leaving the room at all. we wandered around, across the noisy river and into the old town. i have never met someone so eager to ask directions, we were lost to the extent that we should’ve walked to the nearest street sign and looked at the map, but instead got asked sharply ‘how can you possibly get lost in innsbruck?’

we saw the golden roof that is in every german textbook ever written, it’s an awning as i thought. the buildings are pretty and well maintained, many with graphics and illustrations stuck on an empty face somewhere, unrelated to the architectural details. it was wet and noone was about except other australian tourists looking for cheap food.

we finally found good kebabs on the edge of the new town, and ate them listening to some distorted concert nearby. all the supermarkets were closed, so we headed back while the weather held, seeing what we could on the way. piles of hard rubbish in the middle of the pristine city, antifa stencils, drinking fountains, people playing bowls with rectangular wooden blocks. i think.

in the morning i set off to the bus station with some recommendations from the friendly hostel owner. i checked the trains, but the price from the italian border was an anomaly and everything else in austria is expensive. i waited for a bus to the shopping centre near my road, it came and went before i could get myself and my bag on, then i realised it really wasn’t the best choice anyway and journeyed through the city to a different bus stop. the shopping centre was big enough to get lost in but i did manage to buy two buttons to replace the velcro i removed from my sleeping bag at least four years ago! eventually i found my road and from there things went so fast that before i knew it i had passed both salzburg and linz, with everyone having taken me out of their way. even my last truck, where i was squished between a fridge and another driver for part of the way, took me all the way up the highway past linz because he didn’t like the intersection where he would’ve let me off, had he continued straight to vienna. my last ride was even more hospitable, offering me a spare room, dinner, internet, phone and – gasp – a washing machine and dryer in freistadt, a beautiful little walled city where everyone living there has shares in the local beer ‘commune’. they get dividends in beer, but the community feeling seems to extend beyond that.

i walked out to the road in the morning, and the first car i stuck my thumb out for, took me all the way to the czech border. i couldn’t complain, as the czech republic was my next destination, but some day i need to get back to austria and see all the bits that i missed.

i’m sure it would be nice to hear about the good bits of my trip, the ones that came after the last traveloguebut instead, let me tell you about italy.

last time i was in italy i stood on burning hot roads and got yelled at, spat at and gestured at, at regular intervals of about three seconds. i got lost and got given bad directions, i got so fed up that i stowed away on a train, then went out of my way to swítzerland because it was a slightly closer border than the one i should’ve crossed.

this trip, i certainly had no intention of setting foot in italy. yet there i was in beautiful, helpful slovenia, on my way to ljubljiana with recommendations of places to stay, things to do and ways to get out at the end, when my truck did not let me off at my highway as he had agreed to. he took me to trieste.

i sadly abandonded my plans for ljubljana and decided that the fastest way north to austria was as good as i’d get.

of course, at the truck stop in trieste it is very difficult to find a truck going a different direction, and leaving the truck stop for the highway is a bad idea in italy, with two kinds of not very forgiving police. and it’s no fun to move at all in the heat of the day. so i let him take me to mestre, where there was a stop where there would be trucks going in different directions.

of course this was not true either. the stop was 2km past my highway, everyone was still travelling west and there were cops everywhere, i think i was told it was a bomb scare. so i got in a different truck to the next likely highway, at verona.

after an extended period of dispairing ever finding my way out of this impossible country, a car took me from truck stop to highway tollbooth. this, however, was not much of an improvement. my driver pointed to a crossroad and said i needed to go there, though the highway i was on should’ve been the right direction. eventually i hopped the small, crushed fence and walked 50m to a shopping centre, there to finally find a couple of people who speak english, staffing a booth selling credit cards or phones or something. they were very helpful, printing out a map and telling me to walk up up up here and down down down here, to find myself at the right road. on pain of prison i was not to jump the fence, that would be very dangerous.

advice safely tucked away and having restocked in the supermarket, half a bottle of cold juice went some way to reviving me. so i shouldered my bags again, and set out. up, up, up a km or two, past three roundabouts and a whole lot of shopping centre, i found the highway and turned back in on myself. down, down, down on the unpaved side of the highway, i dutifully did not stick my thumb out until i reached the end of the motorway, though the signs confirmed i was walking away from my destination.

of course, after at least 3km, can you guess? i found a tollbooth and a crushed fence to a shopping centre. i’m sure 50m of grass and a metre high wire fence is so dangerous that walking kilometres on the road is better.

the sun was going down by the time someone stopped. he was going in to verona and offered to take me to the train station, and by that time i was prepared to ditch the hitchhiking in favour of just getting out to hitch another day.

of course i wasn’t so thrilled when i found i had been taken from somewhere with a nice campable field, and dumped at a local train station, with only local trains, and no people. aimlessly leaving the station i got talking to two nigerian guys, who discussed racism in italy, religion, and how women are made to be protected. i argued well but still accepted their offer of hospitality. i found myself in a little apartment that must once have been beautiful, before everything was broken. my tour of the bathroom included the shower, which was a big bucket to fill with water and a dish to pour it with, and the light. ‘it goes off sometimes, but don’t worry, it goes back on.’

despite all, they were very hospitable. i got to eat the african food they made for themselves, semolina to roll in balls with your right hand and shape into a slight bowl, to pick up the spicy fish and chicken stew. i have much to learn in the etiquette of eating with my fingers, but nothing was said about my stew splatters everywhere or my very imperfect semolina shapes. it was delicious.

by the time it was apparrent i had half a bed, not a couch to sleep on, i was not surprised. after a bit of arguing he accepted the no touch rule, and i got a decent night’s sleep with no covers and an open window. in the morning he was not quite as cheery as he would’ve been if i had accepted being his girlfriend and agreed to come and visit italy again, but he took me to the bus to the big train station and gave me advice. ‘if you get there, ask a black man for the information office.’

the bus gave me a nice tour of the city, despite not knowing how to pay. it went on for ever and they have a lot of old buildings that look like they’ve been standing there placidly for ever, but just might melt if it rains. people live around them like they’re solid and dependable though, so maybe i’ll trust them on it.

of course i found that my latest friends had picked up the knack for italian directions that they themselves had complained about. the train station was supposed to be the end of the line, so i didn’t get off at the bus station. i continued on and on and on through suburbs, to another bus station. hang on, surely that’s the same church with suspicious carvings… i got off and walked back, and just when i was going to ask a black man i found an information office. he was genuinely surprised that i wanted a train, since he dealt with buses, but he waved me to the other building where i found actual, almost-accurate train information, and even acceptable directions to the ticket office. i bought my ticket to the border, which is as far as they would sell, and even managed to figure out which platform i needed, and find it!

i waited an hour or two on the platform, with four tvs cycling the same five ads at me, sound fading in and out. i got it confirmed that i was on the right platform and that the next train would be mine. i thought i was away once i got on the train, there was space and it was indeed non-smoking, but there was one final little mishap just to remind me where i still was. i proudly showed the ticket inspector the ticket i had managed to both buy and follow, but with the aid of a book of pictures he showed me that i was supposed to validate it. apparrently somewhere, on train or platform, i had missed some yellow machines where i was to stick my newly-bought international train ticket. still, he scrawled all over it, stamped it twice and left me to breathe again.

i did achieve the border, met up with another australian with a hostel address and a local who knew that the austrian trains can be paid for on board, and things ran smoothly again. i stayed a night in innsbruck and set off to enjoy the austrian roads. forget macedonia and bosnia, i can be proud i made it out of italy alive!