Cheese, Machine Guns & Direct Democracy. Steem-Hikers in Switzerland!

steem-hikers (54)in #travel • 7 years ago

When it seemed that a straight road to CERN was waiting for just behind the corner, things got a bit complicated - again... If you follow our blog, you probably already know that for reasons not dependent on us, we were forced to say "tschüss!" to Germany and set out on the road. Well... but where?

There were still a few days left before our SteemSTEM meeting in Geneva at CERN, and we found ourselves completely unprepared to hitch-hiker in winter. No sleeping bags, no tent, no warm socks! And how do we survive the low temperatures without a roof over our heads? Well, we needed to crash somewhere for a few days. We hadn't had enough money to stay in hotels so we the help from a good soul who will share a fragment of his floor with the travellers was necessary. And in this Couchsurfing was very helpful. The word "was" should be emphasized strongly, because we do not know exactly when, but the portal decided to allow its free users only 10 asks for accommodation per week. This is not enough in Western Europe to get a positive response (for two guys at least ;). The cold and the total lack of options motivated us to continue our almost fierce search for the solution. And then bingo! The light appeared at the end of the tunnel, although at that time it was only a microscopic glimmer of hope. During conversations with @saunter I mentioned to him about my Swiss friend, whom I met when hitchhiking along the Adriatic coast. Then he came to my mind again.

@ceybiicien's Reminence

Hitchhikers categorize countries into different levels of "difficulty". In Croatia, hitchhiking is not easy. I have heard it many times, and unfortunately I also had the opportunity to learn about it by myself. The sun mercilessly burned the remains of my skin, which somehow still remained on my burned back. I stood by the road for almost an hour, passing cars packed full to the roof drove by families on holiday. Even if there was a will to push me somewhere between the dog and a beach ball, the car space clearly said "no pasarán! for free-riding passengers. Discouraged by the long standing time in this heat, I wanted to go back to the water source, but then I met Daniel, who traveled alone (like me) to visit his friends on one of the Greek islands. After the question where I was going, he asked the other one, which I will not forget till the end of my life.

"Do you want beer?"

I have been accompanying him on his journey for about four days, on the way occasionally visiting some interesting places along the route. From time to time we had a conversation on Facebook. I invited him to Poland and he invited me to Switzerland. So when we knew that Couchsurfing would not save our ass, I thought of my Swiss companion. Although I do not hide that I felt more than embarrassing writing to him in such circumstances. As it later turned out, my concern was completely unnecessary...

🇩🇪 ➡ 🇨🇭

Daniel agreed immediately. One seemingly trivial problem was that we had to get to him somehow. We were separated by several smaller mountains, Rhine and about two hundred kilometers. It seemed not much - at least for us - because many times we hitchhiked much longer distances in one day, although there a bit of doubt appeared. And where there are doubts, there are also internal voices portending misfortune. The road was twisted, the terrain was unfamiliar and we had to cross borders. Fortunately, we still had common sense that effectively pacified our defeatism and soon the voices of doubt were silent :)

One of the obstacles that hitchhikers have to deal with is the restrictions imposed by the road rules and road infrastructure. When we left Bad Kroozingen (Germany), we hit both of them. On the road on which we found ourselves stopping was forbidden and it had noway side, on which the potential driver was able to stop so as not to stop the traffic on a two-way, very busy (as on Sundays) lane. We did not even try to "catch cars" in that place, we just started the procedure of walking to some more convenient location. We walked along the road sometimes pulling out our hands in the hope that there might be a driver, for whom the no-stop signs had only an informative value. And we succeeded. The first driver was an older woman which happened to be a Pole!

Was this luck favorable for us? Possibly, because we reached Lörrach, the last big town in front of the Swiss border, without a long exposition of our bodies to the cold wind :) But at the moment when the river that separates these two countries seemed to be just a corner, it turned out that travelling several kilometers to the border would take us more time than we expected.

We walked around to warm up our cold bodies. We were changing places with the hope that those few meters left or right would make someone who goes to Zurich have the will to put us inside. Nope. If someone stopped, he only went to Lörrach. Soon, however, we decided to go with one driver where there allegedly would be a better place for hitch-hiking.

Hitch-hiking has it's own "laws". It usually takes more time to catch a ride by a border than it takes to catch it somewhere on the route inside of the country. This is understandable because transporting a stranger with a potential 70 liter of contraband could cause problems for an innocent driver. What if the strangers are two and have huge full packed backpacks? It is better not to know and just pass them by.

So we stood our there in a cold at the southern exit from Lörrach for an hour or two. It was getting dark slowly, so we started to prepare for "plan b" which was going back to the city to look for a warm shelter. We agreed that we'll wait for three more cars to pass. If none of them stops, we go to Lörrach. The first car passed, then the second one, in the third one there would be no room for two of us, so we waited until the fourth was about to pass. But it stopped! The very last car to which we "gave the chance" took us to Switzerland stopped!

After crossing the border, the driver left us on a parking lot at the motorway just behind Basel. From there we managed to get to the petrol station connected with the Raststätte shopping centre thanks to a funny Hungarian driver. We sat in Burger King to come up with a plan to reach Zurich and when we wanted get out from the restaurant to try luck again, Daniel wrote to me asking where were we, when we revealed to him that we were already near Zurich, he told us to wait there, because he would come back from school and pick us up since it was not that far away.

Cheese, machine guns & direct democracy

After about half an hour of waiting, my phone rang and at the moment when I heard "halo" I noticed Daniel's modified Nissan Pathfinder (I regret very much that we did not make photos of this car - or rather how it was changed). Daniel drove a car known to me and on his face he had the same positive smile that stayed in my memory! After a short welcome we went to his family home in Ulster. During a not too long trip, Daniel told us a little about his studies, or rather how much time he has spent recently studying because of his examination session. While it can be said that we were greeted with open arms, when it comes to visiting time, we have unfortunately chosen the worst of all. Daniel had an exam tomorrow! We only hoped that our spontaneous visitation will not affect negatively the examination result.

Switzerland is the last place where I would think of seeing the A.C.A.B. tag.

Private school in Uster

The next day we stayed alone until late afternoon because Daniel had to go to the University. We decided to to go and see what Uster has to offer. We also added to the day agenda a point of getting some ingredients to make some dish for the evening as a small thanks to Daniel. And here I have to say that @Saunter climbed up to the heights of his culinary abilities and prepared overwhelming (the best I ate in my life) pasta with chicken and pesto! After the lunch we went on a bicycle ride twenty kilometers along the shore of the surrounding lake. After an exceptionally refreshing ride we spend some time with Swiss beers and went to sleep (happy that we don't spend the night in frost).

Lake Greifensee

@Ceybiicien with Danielem.

During these few days we were able to get to know Switzerland "from the kitchen" - all thanks to delicious dishes served by mum of our Swiss friend! We have learned a little about the relations between Swiss neighbours, about the attitude and policies towards weapons, and also about how committed Swiss people are to civic participation in political life, for example by participating in regular referendums on a large scale. We told Daniel about Steem, but he couldn't believe that it all works and he was looking for a some kind of catch in in :)

Fondue made from white wine and cheese.

At Daniel's home we felt very safe.

Every day we became more and more fascinated by the captivating charm of this central European country. Everything from the Swiss German language to the Rivelli flavour (Swiss drink made from whey) was fascinating. After these few lazy days spent at Daniel's in Uster, it was time to set off on ourway. As a souvenir, we have received a fanastic gift from Daniel - something what Switzerland, apart from cheese, chocolate and watches is the most famous of. Swiss army knives! We thanked him warmly for his hospitality, and then we said goodbye to Daniel at the station, inviting him to wherever we'll stay for the next few months. No matter whether it is Poland or another country where we live. After we finished to thank him for everything he had did for us, we got on a train that took us to Zurich, from where we took a bus to Freiburg, from which we were supposed to go to the meeting of SteemSTEEM, but then.... well, we already described this part of the story in the previous entry :)