summer trip 2013 - part 2/5

[continued from here]

we left home early, found a good spot and tried for 2,5 hours.. no luck. crossed the whole city, found an even better spot, thumbed for another 3+ hours, no luck. and it was hot as freakin' hell!

around 4pm, we took a train to basel, on the border with france and germany, and after getting lost many times and skating with our backpacks for hours, we found a well located service station a few meters after the immigration checkpoint, germany side. but it was almost night and we were exhausted, so as soon as it got dark, we got into our sleeping bags and slept in the parking lot..

new day, fresh and hopeful, but still no one would pick us up, so we jumped some fences and found our way to the weil am rhein station and took a ‘free’ train to freiburg, a supposedly very hitchhike friendly student city. 1 hour later and no luck again, we decided luck wasn't the issue and just gave up.. after a couple more ‘free’ train rides, we made it to darmstadt by night and had a nice, hot home cooked dinner.. we deserved it.

relaxing next day, we booked a bus to berlin, only to be told by the driver we booked the wrong date! back home to consider the options, we found a shared ride with blablacar leaving early the next morning and took it.. got to berlin by noon..

met some friends, skated around both sides of the city, by checkpoint charlie (which used to be the main checkpoint between the two berlins), to the brandenburg gate and the holocaust memorial. got a kebab and went to weinbergpark, in mitte, where families, teenagers, businessmen and all types of people were enjoying possibly one of the last sunny days of the year..

at night i met some other friends and went to a cool comedy open air show in grießmühle, with stand up comics from many countries, and also live painting, bbq, and live music. next day was also relaxing, with more walking around and hanging out at biesdorfer baggersee, a nice lake/pond also apparently not very know by many..

weather was still great, so next day i met a big group of CSers at treptower park for some ultimate frisbee and later on, went to an exhibition of one of the most active street artists in berlin, prost. it was also his last exhibition in germany, as he'd had issues with the police for his “vandalism” and was about to move out of the country (apparently to france).

from here on i was traveling on my own, and my friend stayed in berlin a little longer.

[continues here]