Ten stops on the tube, seven on the bus and I’m standing in the sunshine at a motorway service station. This shouldn’t be too hard. I’ve popped into the MacDonald’s with the intention of using the rest rooms, but hunger gets the better of me and I give in to temptation. In the back of my mind is this real desire to start eating healthy, but I guess I’m in the wrong place to do that. For the first time ever I don’t order a Bic Mac, opting instead for the Fillet-of-Fish and a bottle of water. The pounds will be falling off.
It’s not long before I’m picked up by a whirlpool and Jacuzzi salesman. With perfect English, he’s a nice guy and good company, but he can only take me to within 80K of Brno, my next destination. I’ve agreed anyway, perhaps making a basic hitching mistake. Don’t feel you need to accept every ride. He’s dropped me in the middle of nowhere at another service station. If I don’t get picked up here it could get ugly. At least I’d have the option of returning to Prague if I failed there. Sleeping in the toilets here is looking like a necessary option.
I hit upon the notion that it’s possible to be too close to a place when hitching a lift if you’ve been dropped at services. Who stops within striking distance of home to fill up? Traffic isn’t that forthcoming and it’s looking like a long wait, when a shaven headed grinning Czech in an unmarked Transit gives me the nod. Alarm bells are ringing. I’ve slipped my pepper spray into a lower short pocket and sit toying with it all the way to Brno.
He’s got one of those Russian Mafia accents when he speaks English. Serbian Hit Squad maybe, whatever that is. An Eastern block terrorist you play in X-box games, killing hundreds in an airport. He’s got one foot on the dashboard, and despite it being left hand drive, he’s operating the gears with his left hand while leaning over and asking questions. I refrain from turning my head too far to the right to take my eyes off him and expose the jugular.
My suspicions of him wearing a suit of my skin prove unfounded, and he turns out to be a really friendly guy. He’s gone out of his way to drop me in a central location and I’m once again grinning from ear to ear after another successful hitch. Honestly there is no feeling like it. I’m marching through the town to meet Lucia, my first couch surfing host of this trip. While I do my best to have a detox and take some night pictures of the town, she has other ideas, and we end the night with a horrible trance club and a dodgy hamburger. I’d like to point out that neither of those was her fault.
.
It rubs the lotion on itself…
Ten stops on the tube, seven on the bus and I’m standing in the sunshine at a motorway service station. This shouldn’t be too hard. I’ve popped into the MacDonald’s with the intention of using the rest rooms, but hunger gets the better of me and I give in to temptation. In the back of my mind is this real desire to start eating healthy, but I guess I’m in the wrong place to do that. For the first time ever I don’t order a Bic Mac, opting instead for the Fillet-of-Fish and a bottle of water. The pounds will be falling off.
It’s not long before I’m picked up by a whirlpool and Jacuzzi salesman. With perfect English, he’s a nice guy and good company, but he can only take me to within 80K of Brno, my next destination. I’ve agreed anyway, perhaps making a basic hitching mistake. Don’t feel you need to accept every ride. He’s dropped me in the middle of nowhere at another service station. If I don’t get picked up here it could get ugly. At least I’d have the option of returning to Prague if I failed there. Sleeping in the toilets here is looking like a necessary option.
I hit upon the notion that it’s possible to be too close to a place when hitching a lift if you’ve been dropped at services. Who stops within striking distance of home to fill up? Traffic isn’t that forthcoming and it’s looking like a long wait, when a shaven headed grinning Czech in an unmarked Transit gives me the nod. Alarm bells are ringing. I’ve slipped my pepper spray into a lower short pocket and sit toying with it all the way to Brno.
He’s got one of those Russian Mafia accents when he speaks English. Serbian Hit Squad maybe, whatever that is. An Eastern block terrorist you play in X-box games, killing hundreds in an airport. He’s got one foot on the dashboard, and despite it being left hand drive, he’s operating the gears with his left hand while leaning over and asking questions. I refrain from turning my head too far to the right to take my eyes off him and expose the jugular.
My suspicions of him wearing a suit of my skin prove unfounded, and he turns out to be a really friendly guy. He’s gone out of his way to drop me in a central location and I’m once again grinning from ear to ear after another successful hitch. Honestly there is no feeling like it. I’m marching through the town to meet Lucia, my first couch surfing host of this trip. While I do my best to have a detox and take some night pictures of the town, she has other ideas, and we end the night with a horrible trance club and a dodgy hamburger. I’d like to point out that neither of those was her fault.
.