Absolute Hitchhiking Failure In Austria

I'm in central Austria at 2 in the morning and I drank my last Red Bull and no one wants to give me a ride and my bank account won't work until I get to Germany which means I have no money so fuck me.

As they say in Slovakia...Jebautopezdopice (Fuck a dog's vagina.)  I'm sleeping in the gas station tonight.   There's a small restaurant area inside so I stretch out on one of the padded booths and pass out.  It seems the employees don't care.  For the past 5 hours they've been amused with watching me absolutely fail to hitchhike from Austria to Germany.

After the Ruzinov Concert I spent a few happy days joking and playing in Bratislava with my Slovak and Polish friends from Krakow.  I completed my travel circle by passing through Vienna once again to visit and say goodbye to my Bulgarian artist friend, Kosta Tonev.  Once I left Vienna I was on my own again.  I had a few more days to catch my flight from Frankfort back to Costa Rica, so I arbitrarily picked a town half-way between Vienna and Frankfort to hitchhike to.  That town was Regensburg.  Regensburg was the best random choice I could have made, but the trip there proved to be my worst hitchhiking experience ever.
  

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It started fine.  In accordance with hitchwiki.org again, I had taken a bus to a gas station at the farthest possible Western point of metropolitan Vienna.  Within an hour a nice middle-aged lady took me to rest stop  on the highway south of Linz.  From there it got more difficult, and almost 2 1/2 hours passed before a young hippie, professional juggling couple picked me up.  They said they wanted to take me because I had a guitar, so I "must be an artist" like them.  Hippies.

"We are sorry, artist.  We must go south, but can take you to Wels where there is a highway to Passau border to Germany.  It is late."

They seemed very apologetic about having to leave me alone at sunset by the highway.  There wasn't much to look at: the gas station, a rundown hotel and a large parking lot full of trucks with license plates from all corners of Europe.  A typical highway rest stop.

I had a small sign with "Passau" written on it.  I brandished it like a sword at the automobiles as they stopped at the pumps to fill up.   It was far easier than standing on the side of a highway and I felt positive despite it being almost 8 o'clock at night.  Several people were already offering me rides.  Unfortunately no one was going all the way to Germany.  An hour passed in front of the station and the streetlights light up.  It was officially nighttime.

Time to ask truckers.  This idea quickly went south as practically all of them had turned off their lights and gone to sleep.  The cars that remained in the parking lot were full of sleeping families and various boxes.   Most of them bore license plates from Slavic countries, The Balkans and Turkey.  Austria sits at a crossroads between what many people refer to as prosperous Western Europe and poor Eastern Europe.  The parking lot was in the middle of Austria, but felt like one of the many eastern borders I had crossed on my journey.

It was a parking lot of tired transients with no fixed homes: truckers, immigrants and a lonely American hitchhiker.  It was cold and late, so I went inside to spend my last saved Euros on a cup of coffee at the all-night cafe.  The bartender and gas station staff were all Bosnian and Croatian.  The two sexy girls who sat down next to me were Romanians who were "just working" in Austria.  Where were all the Austrians?  Wels stood at the foot of a mass wave of immigrants working in France, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium while secretly waiting for their free days to return to their families and culture in Romania, Serbia, Ukraine and Turkey.  My quick little European joyride felt quite insignificant in comparison.


I slept fitfully for 3 hours in the booth.  In the early morning light I got a ride from a man who spoke neither German nor English.  I tried my Serbian-Slovak-Slavic mongrel language.  His eyes understood and he showed me his Croatian passport.  He was going all the way to Frankfort to work so, yes, he could drop me off in Regensburg.

I will miss "Eastern" Europe.

  

The Ružinov Drinking Hill Concert

I don't like to write for tourists.  I wrote this for my friends.

The concert took place inside Espresso Planetka pub.  But that's not where the party was.

My musician friend, Robo Patejdl, and I hosted a great hour-long concert with many old and new friends on that warm August night in Bratislava, Slovakia.  After that we had to relocate.  Anyone who has been out with me in that neighborhood will tell you that bars, restaurants and houses that we drink at are all just filler.  The heart and soul of our Ružinov parties is Drinking Hill.

Where are the other pictures?

I don't remember most of the concert, since I'm always in a nervous, panicked blur before I perform.  I do remember people taking pictures and filming, but for some reason only one picture has surfaced from that night.  It's my skinny ass...probably singing Lady Gaga for the millionth time.  If anyone has more pictures from that night, please send them.  Deki moc!

Rather than try to recall the events of the particular concert, I'm just going to wax nostalgic about Ružinov Drinking Hill. *sigh*  People accuse me of many faults: excessive drinking, womanizing, fear of commitment, inability to grow-up, being easily distracted...

Uhhh, where was I?  My worst addiction would be nostalgia.  Nostalgia for places, experiences and, most importantly, people.  I constantly think of the good old days with friends and how I can relive them. Traveling feeds this addiction.  Somewhere down the next road is something better and more exciting than what I have already experienced.  Every time I return to Ružinov I hope that the next party will be better than the previous ones...

Here is nostalgia at its worst.  In pictures, this the legend of Ružinov Drinking Hill:

First we gather lots of alcohol.  Russians are famous for their drinking, but their Slavic brothers in general (of course Slovaks) have an amazing capacity for drink.  In the United States I'm called an alcoholic.  In Slovakia I'm a "weak bitch."

"Alcohol Poisoning!"

Czech-Slovak Beer served American House Party Style

Bring lots of food and start grilling in the park.  This would seem logical to any American (ahem 'Murican).  However big, American-style outdoor barbecues are not a part of Slovak culture...yet.

Parky a Paprika

The "front yard" of my Ruzinov flat

Take the party back inside your Communist-era panelka flat.  Since barbecues aren't normal in Slovakia, the police often saw it as a danger and would break up the party.  Or the weather would suddenly change.  This only encouraged the bad behavior.

The Smoking Section

The Toast with Fancy 'Murican Imported SOLO Cups

Take the party back OUTSIDE the apartment.  Slovakia has a law that prohibits loud noise in buildings after 10pm (22:00).  Around 9:50pm we had to stage a massive exodus for our drunken troops.  A little hill in an adjacent park became our refuge since it possesses a magical ability to hid people from the police...

10:00pm - Ready to Begin the Drinking Hill Voyage

Heading to The Secret Rendezvous Point with Buckets of Beer

Party at Ruzinov Drinking Hill.  I can't tell you what happens at Drinking Hill...most likely because I'm too black-out drunk to remember.  There was usually a Slovakian lady and a lot of alcohol involved.  Everybody who has been there has their own debil story about the people they met or the stupid things they did.  All I know is at some point the next morning I would return there after some wild voyage around Bratislava's bars to collect evidence of the party.  There was never much left...

One Lonely SOLO Cup Is All That's Left

I miss these times and the people who were there.  Bratislava, Slovakia is not a place that most people put on their Top Ten travel lists, but for me it's one of the best.  And it's all thanks to the people who are there.    This song is for you guys.  I played it at the Ružinov Concert and I will play it the next time I see you, because I always gotta feelin'...

The Beautiful Beaches of Bratislava

There are a lot of nice beaches around Bratislava.

That sounds pretty stupid, doesn't it?  When my Couchsurfer told me she was taking me to the beach for the day, I though she had perhaps drank too many slivovica shots.  Slovakia is a landlocked country known for its mountains and snow.  The thought of a beach here sounds absurd.

Use your imagination.  Go to Bratislava in the summer and there are several nice places where you can lay your towel in the sand, grab a cold drink, get a nice tan and then cool off later with a dip in the water.  And don't worry, there will plenty of nice girls to look at.  This is Slavic Europe.

1. T-com Beach
T-Com Beach is on the opposite side of the Dunaj River from downtown Bratislava.  If it's not June, July or August don't go looking for it because it doesn't exist in the winter.  During the summer months construction crews dump several tons of sand on the riverside and contain it all in wooden partitions.  After that they set up beach chairs, umbrellas and several fancy, stand-alone cafes on top of the sand.  If you want to feel glamorous and have a good view of the Old Town, cross the New Bridge and pick out a spot.

2. Zlaty Piesky
Zlaty Piesky is a small resort with a lake located on the city limits of Bratislava.  Whenever I felt inspired to pull out my guitar and write a song, I would go out here to clear my head.  Take the red tram line 4 all the way to the last stop where Tesco is.  This lake is more relaxed and less glamorous than T-com, but is a great area for camping, picnics and the occasional music festival like the Uprising Reggae Festival.  If you don't feel like jumping in the lake, the surrounding park has places for volleyball, street hockey, tennis and mini-golf.

3. Čunovo Lake
Čunovo is an excellent choice for a short day-trip to get away from the "big" city.  From the city center you can take any connecting route to Bus 91 and you will be at the lake within 50 minutes.  If you want a more scenic trip, rent a bike and follow the Dunaj River south from Bratislava.  I was fortunate enough to have a Couchsurfer with a car.  During the trip south I was looking at a map and realized the road on the other side of the tree grove was where I had painfully crossed the Hungarian-Slovak border the previous day.

It was a hot August day and after parking the car, we immediately jumped into the cool lake.  My host told me that the lake isn't natural and used to be an old rock mine that was later filled in with water.  This may explain an island which is unnaturally located in the exact middle of the lake.  We were both feeling fit and decided to swim to the island.  It took some some effort but eventually we made it to the shore and laid down to dry off in the sun.

Since Couchsurfing is by nature a traveling network, people often meet at random, talk briefly and then leave so quickly that they hardly have time to get to know each other.  You feel like a pinball bouncing from place to place without ever truly stopping.  Barely 24 hours had passed since I had hitchhiked from Budapest, arrived at her place exhausted, made introductions and then promptly passed out on her guest bed.  She had been kind enough to take me down here to this pleasant, scenic corner of Slovakia that only yesterday had looked like hell on earth.  I took a moment to look at this lady and consider exactly who she was.

But not too many moments.  She's in a swimsuit and that would be weird...*ahem*...

She was what I would call a classic Slovak lady: tall, thin, and quiet with a pretty face which made her look much younger than her years suggested.  She had lived in the United States for a while and it had given her a different perspective on the rather traditional life of Slovakia.  We chatted about our respective travels but spent much of the time in quiet reflection. Čunovo Lake will do that to a person.

I needed the peace and quiet.  In another 24 hours I would be hosting my own, rowdy Bratislava Reunion Concert.