|
BACK TO HOME FROM IHHC 4, MARCH 2000
writen by Robert Prins (NL) on 14 March 2000
As for my trip back, it was nice, three rides from Vilnius
to the border, one through Latvia, and one through Estonia,
where the weather was absolutely abysmal. I finally arrived
in Tallinn at 22:01, too late for the ferries. At about
midnight I was tossed out of the terminal, but about five
minutes later the guy who did this took me into some crew
entrance, and allowed me to sleep at the top of some stairs!
The next day I realised that Helsinki would be out of the
question, the ferries from Tallinn leave in the afternoon,
arriving in Helsinki at such a time that hitching to Turku
to catch the same day ferry to Stockholm would have been
impossible. As a result I directly went to Stockholm, after
spending all day in Tallinn.
Upon arrival in Stockholm, at about 9:30 on Wednesday, I
tried to get a ride on the ferry and on the quay, both
without luck, so eventually I walked into the town centre,
bought three CDs, and walked to Fridhemsplan, Mr Toner's
suggested point of departure. IT IS CRAP!
Walking back I decided to try my luck at the E4 sliproad
just after the central station, and was away in about 10
minutes, be it for a short ride, 6.3 km. Six more of such
rides followed, and I was getting worried, it was snowing
again, and at 17:10 I had covered merely 100 km...
At that moment, on a petrolstation just after Nykoping, my
usual lucky moment arrived. I had already been promised a
ride, but the driver had told me to wait, as he was going to
get something to drink first. A few minutes later, another
car pulled up, and again I asked if the driver was going in
the direction of Jonkoping. Again the answer was "Yes", so
at 17:29 we left. About 30 minutes for Jonkoping the driver
asked me where I wanted to go, and when I told him that I
was on my way to Holland, he told me that he would give me
a ride all the way - he was on his way to Amsterdam!!!!
We arrived there just after 12 on Thursday, and just over an
hour later I arrived in Utrecht, where I decided to take the
bus for the last bit.
Friday was the usual shit, getting from Bilthoven (Utrecht)
to Calais is difficult, I left at 7:06, and crossed into
Belgium, a mere 130 km or so, at 13:51...
Eventually I reached Calais at 17:14, and went through the
tunnel for a second time. Dropped in the dark at Maidstone,
I still managed to get a ride to London, but from there I
took the ridiculously expensive train (and to add insult to
injury, a taxi) to get to Ipswich, arriving there just
before midnight.
After a day in Ipswich, I left for Holland, where I'm now
staying with my father. We'll be going back to the UK on
Thursday, when I will, close to 10 years after leaving
Holland, finally take my blazingly fast 16MHz 386 with me,
whoopie! ;-)
|
