On August 5, we met with Kazka in Warsaw to collect garbage along the riverside. After 3 hours of cleaning in the burning sun, we filled about 5 large containers with trash. After, we had a small workshop on how to reuse trash in a creative way, which was a very special experience. Good job everyone!
Between the 2nd to 4th of August, nine of us stayed in Poznan. Markus and Karina decided to hitchhike to Krakow instead, to meet some new friends from Woodstock.
Hitchhiking the 190 km from Kostrzyn to Poznan was very easy. There was a huge traffic jam everywhere around the festival area, so we just walked on the street and asked every driver on the way to our hitchhiking spot. Floriane immediately got a ride directly to Poznan. Eline and Paula also got a lift to the highway. When the rest of us arrived at our actual hitchhiking spot, next to a petrol station at the highway, we joined the long row of other hitchhikers. About half an hour later, all of us had found a lift. Although me and Kayo where the last one leaving Kostrzyn, we arrived first in Poznan, due to the incredible high speed of our driver. He dropped us off at our hosts front door after giving a free city tour. Or first host was Chris and his family. They live with four people in a 3-room flat closed to the main station. They were extremely kind and agreed to host all 9 of us. His son Kasper moved to the couch in the living room for a night and we had a whole room for ourselves. I still don’t understand why someone agrees to host 9 stinky strangers coming from Woodstock in your house, but I am very thankful and happy about it! At the beginning everyone was a bit stiff and shy, but it didn’t take long until the first beers were open and “the ice broke”. We ate dutch Stamppot together and drank polish hazelnut vodka. They played relaxing music, Chris massaged all the girls and everyone had a broad smile on their faces. After 5 days of Festival, this place really felt like heaven. I guess Chris and his family also had fun because they invited us to come next year again. The second night in Poznan we stayed at two different hosts. I stayed at Mikolajs place together with Luuk, Florianne, Kübra and Paula. It is always amazing to see that people trust you. Mikolaj gave us the keys to his apartment, so we could go out to party. We had another great night in Poznan and the hangover from the next day is still not fully gone. ;-) Concluding, I can say that Poznan seems like a really good place to live as a young person and I am considering to go there for my semester abroad. Greetings from Bialystok, Phil Unfortunately, two of us already left the group:
One of them is Yonatan, who has to go back to Groningen for his job and new apartment. We knew that you would leave us early but it was very sad anyway. We had great fun with you! The second one is Rowana, she decided to follow her heart and put her own travel plans into action. We miss you already and wish you good luck on your way! Hopefully, we will see both of you soon. The team Hi everyone. Our trip started last week in Berlin. We have been incredibly busy enjoying life, that’s why nobody posted in the blog. Now I have time to relax and give you a quick update. Berlin: In my opinion, the trip couldn’t have started any better. We had an amazing time in my hometown, enjoying the multicultural vibe and the many different facets of this beautifully chaotic city. Each day the team became larger... The first one arriving was Floriane from (french) Switzerland. Charlotte and Rowana joined us from Holland shortly after. Then Markus from Austria and Karina from Russia arrived, followed by Eline and Diederik from Holland the day after. Finally, Kübra from Turkey and Yonatan from Israel came to Berlin on the day of our departure (completely exhausted from 3 days of dancing at a salsa festival in Hamburg). In Berlin we joined the Couchsurfing event “Back to Berlin”, which was a great way to meet people from all over the world and have fun together. Thanks to the organizer Andre! It was a great event and I wish our group could have participated even more. Apart from that, we also explored the city by ourselves and some of us joined a big parade called “Zug der Liebe”. I also want to thank our amazing hosts! Thanks to Laura, Simon, Valentin, Elke, Masha and Gerrit for offering there places to stay. Thanks for being part of our trip! Our time in Berlin passed by almost as fast as Eline eats Currywurst and suddenly it was already time to pack our stuff and begin or hitchhiking adventure towards Woodstock... For many of us it was actually the first time hitchhiking and the first careful attempts were certainly a bit stiff. As a local I tried to talk to drivers waiting at the traffic lights. Quite a lot of people actually thought that I was begging for money and didn’t even pull down the window. But after a while I adjusted my way of approaching people and was successful. It was quite amusing for me to see the facial expressions of the “first-time-hitchhikers”... A mix of excitement and confusion. Picking up the positive energy from the first ride, we managed to get more rides and the rest of the trip was pretty easy. About 4 hours later, all 10 of us had made it safely to our destination (Kostrzyn in Poland). Another 3 hours later, our camp a bit outside the festival area was set up and everyone was thoroughly happy. A statement of one of the hitchhiking beginners: “It was awesome! I was actually sad that our driver took us all the way at once.” Woodstock: Paula (Germany), Luuk (Holland) and Kayo (Poland) joined our camp during the next days and also Squid from Sweden became part of us for a little wile. While we were quite separated in Berlin, we now had one camp all together, which definitely improved the team feeling. We had a really great time!
For me this Woodstock means... ... people starting to camp in the area one month before the festival starts. ... people taking machetes, axes and chain saws into the forest and building houses from living trees in front of the main stage. ... playing endless rounds of flunky ball, discussing about every single throw. ... dancing in the mud fields. ... having relaxing Yoga circles in the morning with the ear-battering hardcore metal from the polish neighbors as background music. ... Markus trying to keep up with the drinking pace of our other polish neighbors. ... protecting from the rain with 10 people in the same tent. ... seeing Kübra crowdsurfing away to the front of 100.000 people, not knowing if I will ever see her again. ... not knowing what the next Henna Tattoo will be. (probably a penis) Or you can also express it like Luuk: “At Woodstock, it doesn’t matter how crazy you are, at least half of the people around you are more crazy!" Yesterday we left Woodstock and slept in a real bed, but that's an other story. Greetings from Poznan, Phil One of the points on our bucket list is: "Help a local in every country we come trough." In Berlin, we painted a classroom of a primary school called "W.I.R. Grundschule". We hope that the kids will enjoy their new, shiny white classroom after the summer holidays ;-) Here some pictures:
Hi everyone, this is the first blog post and I hope that many will follow. First, I want to introduce myself. I am Philippe from Berlin, 22 years old and currently studying Communication in Groningen (Netherlands). I really enjoy the study program, but I am also missing a bit more action and adventure from time to time. Before I came to Groningen, I was travelling around Australia and Asia for about 2 years. For me traveling means not knowing what will happen next and being open for any kind of spontaneous change of the trip. Stop making plans and let yourself drift by your surroundings. That's real freedom! To finally feel this freedom again, I wanted to organise a big travel event in the summer break and that is how the idea of "Hitchiking Summer 2015" developed.
Until now we had two meetings with interested people. It looks like there are at least 10 people joining and the team is getting bigger every week! We are a colourful mix of people from different backgrounds. Everyone is very open and full of ideas. Two days ago, we had a delicious 5- star dinner at my place and we developed a to-do list and a packing list. Everyone is already excited and personally I can't wait for the summer. I forgot to take a group picture but we will do that next time... We also created a bucket list, with all the things we want to do during the trip... Of course there is still room for additions: - catch and eat our own fish! - shower in a fountain! - sleep in a big house! - make it to the local newspaper! - skinny dipping in the sea! - camping in someones garden! - eat hamburgers from someones BBQ! - get a lift from a truck! - drive someone else's car! - get/collect a free meal! - hitchhike on the water! - help a local in every country we come through! - share a drink with a local from every country we come through! - collect money with street music! - make street art! - trade a paperclip into something valuable (the most valuable object wins)! - make a ring and run! - learn “you have beautiful eyes” in 9 languages! - learn a swearword in 9 languages! - have a 50-Meter race at the beach! - have a street workout! - say something deep at the campfire! That's all for now, Take it easy :-) |
About this blog...During our trip, we plan to publish frequent updates and share travel experiences. Archives
August 2015
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