Thursday the 5th of June
2014. I have always wanted to try hitchhiking since I met my Polish friend Kasia Nowicka, who has hitchhiked around Iceland, through Finland to Lapland and
back through Norway and Sweden, through Italy to Sicily and back through Greece
and Macedonia to Poland! But when I told my parents that I wanted to go hitchhiking
this summer they forbid me to do it, and because I respect my parents and
understand how appalling it would be for them (and me) if something would
happen I have given up that plan. Partly. I won’t hitchhike around Europe that
is.
But now my friend and I are two moneyless students who wanted to come from
Helsinki to Tampere on undetermined time on a sunny June morning, so we decided
to try hitchhiking, as Finland is (quite) a safe country.
We chose the bus stop at the
crossing where the Mannerheimintie ends and the motorway to Tampere begins. We
had planned to meet as early as possible, but both of us were late, so we
actually started hitchhiking first at about 9 AM, which is far to late because
we had already missed all the people who were going to go to work in the
morning from Helsinki to Tampere.
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| Preparing the sign... June 5th 2014. |
We took turns at holding the sign and holding up the thumb. To both of our
surprise it was actually quite straining to keep your thumb up for a long time,
our right thumb and arm got quite sore from that. For about 45 minutes we
waited and by the time that we were already getting a bit sunburnt FINALLY a
car stopped! We at first didn’t even notice, before the driver honked at us.
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| Hitchhiking to Tampere 5th of June 2014. |
The thing about hitchhiking
that fascinates me so much is that you never know what kind of people you will
meet. Also this time I was taken by surprise. The small car that had stopped
for us was driven by a friendly woman in her late fifties, on her way to a
garden party in Tampere. She had worked in a bank as a young girl, fallen in
love with a taxi driver who often came to the bank, and then started working as
a taxi driver her self. As a hobby she and her boyfriend (still the same one as
when she was a young girl) had motorcycles and were going to drive through
Germany during their vacation. And she was an absolutely excellent driver! She
moreover was delighted to hear I spoke Swedish and asked if it was okay with me
if she could practise her Swedish with me, and I was delighted by her
enthusiasm. So all the two-hour drive we talked in Swedish about her travels
and about motorcycles, because there were a lot of Harley-Davidsons driving in the
opposite direction, which made her very excited. And we got a perfect ride all
the way to the city centre of Tampere. A great experience!
