adventure

I had an amazing week in Malmö. As said in the previous post, I visited Roxana there. On Monday we went to the beach and I was not sure if I was in Sweden or in Italy. Tuesday was the first day of my trip where the weather wasn’t so good. In the evening it got better and we went to the places where Zlatan Ibrahimovic grew up.

After that we colored the canvases we bought. It was a nice evening sitting on the balcony next to the sunset and painting a sunset.

On Wednesday we made a day trip to Ales Stenar. A kind of Swedish Stonehenge. We decided to hitchhike the roughly 1 1/2 hour ride there. It took us 4 different cars. After waiting for about half an hour Roxana wanted to give up and take the train but exactly at that moment a car stopped. The guy was amazingly nice because he didn’t even had to go to the place we wanted to go. He was just free and decided to help us and take us the first couple of kilometers to Trelleborg. Unbelievable and also all the other people that picked me up have been awesome so far. Half-way between Trelleborg and Ystad we waited at a bus stop. No cars stopped but when the bus came, the bus driver told us, that we were welcome too. We couldn’t believe it. This was just crazy.

On thursday I met Thomas and his girlfriend Silvy in Malmö. They bought a van and transformed it into a campervan. The last two weeks they traveled Norway and now on their way back we met in Malmö.

It was nice to see you again. Enjoy the rest of your journey.

And a big thank you to Roxana for hosting me. It was awesome. So glad to see you again.

On Friday I continued my way north. This time it felt somehow different. It was the first time, I hitchhiked without a specific destination in my mind. It took me not too long to get out of the city. One guy that took me, told me of an amazing place called Mölle. So that was my destination for that day. But it was not easy to go there. I waited at a bus stop for nearly two hours until a 17 year old boy came and asked me what I was doing. I told him my story and he offered me to pay for my busticked to Mölle because he was also going there. We had a nice conversation and he told me that I was an inspiration for him. That felt really good to hear.

In the evening I met a guy from Denmark while looking for a good place for my tent. Magnus is 23 years old and walked nearly all the way from Copenhagen to Mölle. He told me that he was sleeping next to the sea without a tent. I decided to join him. We climbed up to the top of the hill to watch the sunset. It was beautiful. The sunset in the sea.

Magnus has decided on that same day that he had enough of walking and that he would hitchhike to Oslo because his girlfriend lives there. What a coincidence. I also wanted to go north so we decided to hitchhike together to Oslo. It took us two days but I really had a great time. Hitchhiking together with someone else is much more fun than alone. We had deep conversations, danced to reggae music, slept in the kingsforrest, and after 8 different cars, we arrived in Oslo on sunday evening. Magnus‘ girlfriend has an apartment together with two other girls. She was about to come to oslo on Tuesday and also another girl would come back on Tuesday so I had a room for two nights in freakin Oslo. Who would have thought that three days ago. In the evening I went out for some beers with the roommate of Magnus‘ girlfriend and her friends. It was funny. The next day we did some sightseeing in Oslo. It’s a nice city but very expensive.

Thank you Magnus for the time together. It was nice to meet you.

A few days before I came to Oslo, a friend of mine sent me a message that he would also come to Norway on Monday. It was Jakob, who I met just a couple of months ago when he held a talk about his trip around the world. It was amazing and he was one of the people that inspired me to do what I am doing. He is visiting a friend in Norway and he asked me if I want to meet up at Stange, where they would spend a week at a cabin next to the lake there. So that’s what I did. I hitchhiked to Stange from where I had to walk nearly two hours to get to the cabin. It was exhausting because my heavy backpack was not meant for walking. Along the way I saw a moose which made up for the struggles. It was amazing.

At the cabin I stayed for two nights. I had an amazing time there. Playing the guitar, canoeing on the lake, sleeping under the stars, swimming in the morning… It was unbelievable. A couple of months ago I listened to the talk of Jakob telling his story of how he and Martin, the guy the cabin belongs to, hitchhiked from Vienna to Portugal and now I’m here with them and actually doing some similar adventure. Check out his Blog at thousandfirststeps.com. Thank you so much to both of you for the great time and keep spreading good vibes to the world.

That’s it so far. I am really enjoying the time on the road, meeting all these great people. I feel blessed to have such amazing friends and I’m looking forward to what’s to come.

Thanks for reading.
All the best,
Manuel

Here are some more shots of the last few days:

So the first week is over. It is unbelievable how fast time passes by. I’m on the road since last Monday and I had such a great time, met awesome people and made a lot of new experiences. In this post I want to share the most important moments with you.

Last Monday I woke up early. I was very excited and also a bit nervous. Me and my family had breakfast together and then suddenly my best friend Liam was standing in front of me. What a nice surprise. I said goodbye to my parents and Liam and my brother Matthäus went with me to the main street in our village where I put my finger out and tried to catch the first ride. This was the part I was most anxious about. How would that be to start my hitchhiking trip directly from my hometown. But after like five minutes, the first car stopped. It was a friend of mine, on the way to the airport where they went to Bali for honeymoon. What a perfect timing because my first destination was Vienna anyways. But not everything was easygoing. In the next city we had a car accident because another car came out of a parking lot and the driver didn’t see us coming and crashed into the side of our car. Luckily no one was hurt and after filling out the accident report we could continue our way to Vienna. What a start to the honeymoon but also for my trip. They dropped me off at a station a couple of kilometers before Vienna because I wanted to reach Linz on the first day where I was about to meet my friend Lukas. After about two hours of waiting, I found someone that took me halfway to Linz and he dropped me at Loosdorf where I grabbed some food and then I was lucky to find a young couple that took me directly to Linz. I met up with Lukas and we had some barbecue and than grabbed a beer in the city center. What a perfect first day.

The next day in the morning we drove a little bit around on the new motorbike Lukas bought about one month ago. Then he asked me if I wanted to try it as well. I never did that before but I agreed to try it. So we found a parking spot and I drove around with the first gear. It was funny and I was happy that Lukas trusted me with this.

In the afternoon we met up with some friends of Lukas and drove to the Attersee where we tried to sail but it started to rain shortly after we went to the lake. So no sailing at that day. In the evening the weather got better and we had barbecue again. After that we went to a bar where we watched the football game between France and Belgium.

On Wednesday Lukas drove me and two other friends to Salzburg where he dropped me at a gas station on the highway. Thank you so much Lukas! It was an awesome start for my trip.

At first I thought that this would be a good place to hitchhike from but I was wrong. I waited for four hours. Then I found two young peaple from Germany and they where on their way back from Vienna. They took me all the way from Salzburg to Munich. They dropped me in a smaller Village a little bit after Munich because I wanted to sleep in my tent and that would’ve been difficult in the city center. The night in the tent was fine. I found a good place in the wood a little bit outside of the city. I woke up early the next day because I wanted to go as far north to Berlin as possible because I wanted to meet a friend from university there. In the evening I could hardly believe my luck. With 5 different cars, I was actually in Berlin. There was also a truck from Latvia and especially the last ride from Dresden to Berlin was amazing. It was with Lutz and he was driving through Germany because he needed to put on some Bluetooth boxes at the restaurants next to the highway. He drove 2700 kilometers in just under three days. We got along great from the beginning and especially the 80s and 90s playlist will stay in my memory longer. In the end he even brought me directly to the apartment of Sophie which is not far from the city center.

I spent two full days and three nights in Berlin. The weather was awesome so I could do a lot of sightseeing. I went to the Brandenburger Tor, Reichstag, Checkpoint Charlie, and many more.

I tried Currywurst and listened to a bunch of street musicians. On Friday I walked around alone because Sophie still had to work but on Saturday we did some sightseeing together which was nice. I liked Berlin a lot. There are so many different parts of the city and on every corner there is some kind of memorial or museum because it’s a very historic city. A big thank you to Sophie, Lea and Jonathan for hosting me. It was nice to meet you and I had a great time.

On Sunday I woke up early because I wanted to continue my trip to the north. The most difficult part was to get out of the city. A tourist guide told me to take the metro to Frohnau and try to catch a ride out of the city there. Thats what I did and after 35 minutes a woman took me to the highway driveway. There I tried to catch a ride to Hamburg. I found a guy but on the way I looked at the map and decided that it would be better to go directly to Rostock because I wanted to skip Denmark because Roxana, the friend I wanted to visit in Malmò is there just until next Saturday, so I thought it would take to long. Thats why I wanted to go to Rostock and take a ferry from there directly to Malmò. That’s why he dropped me off before the junction to Rostock. I sat there for probably half an hour and then a car from Sweden stopped. They where about to go to Puttgarden where they wanted to buy some alcohol because it is crazy expensive in Sweden. From there they where not sure if there was going to be a ferry for that day but if there was one, they would go all the way through Denmark up to Malmò on that same day. I could not believe how lucky I was. Not only was I going through Denmark, I was also going to be in freaking Malmò at the same day I left Berlin. Unbelievable. I would have never imagined that I was going to be that fast with hitchhiking but it seems that really met the right people. So a big thank you to the people reading this, that gave me a ride, no matter how far it was. You are awesome!

So we went to Puttgarden and I helped them to buy the alcohol. Then we grabbed some food and watched the Worldcup final on an I-Pad which was very nice because I thought that I was going to miss it. Then we had to wait for half an hour for the ferry but that was perfectly fine.

We drove through Denmark and I arrived at Malmò shortly after 9 pm. Roxana picked me up at the central station and she was out drinking some wine with friends so I joined them. It was an amazing day and even in the evening I could hardly believe that I really made it to Malmò in just one day. I am so lucky. And also I have amazing friends. I know Roxana just for one month (we met at the Erasmus+ project in Izmir) and now I am here and I can stay at her place.

The start was more than successful and this first week was really amazing, but it was only the first week and there is still a lot ahead of me.

Thank you for reading. I’m happy about anyone who follows me on Instagram Facebook or here on my blog.

Here are some more impressions of the first week: