970. Wanderlust
I had quite a difficult time lately and I reached a point where I just couldn't sit at home waiting for my future to be decided upon anymore. So I packed my backpack and went for a walk. My goal was to reach Vienna, but I ended up hitchhiking a good part of way. I took me (almost) five days to get there and it was a very interesting experience.
I did a lot of things I always was afraid of and the last few days definitely helped me fighting some of my demons.
I started on sunday in the late evening and walked all night. I neither had a tent nor a blanket with me so I slept on a deerstand for a bit when I was to tired to walk any further.
The moon was almost full and it was such a lovely night walk. There were fireflies everywhere and the crickets were singing.
It was so hot all the time. I tried to walk mostly early in the morning and late in the evening when the sun had set.
One night I slept in the straw near a little river. It was quite comfortable. I woke up from a thunderstorm an heavy rain and slept for the rest of the night in a bus stop.
It was far more exhausting than I thoght. I walked nearly 40 km in the first night and the following day, but after the first real night my legs and feet hurt so bad and I was so tired that I became so damn slow. I had to take a lot of breaks and it took me ages to reach my stopovers.
I often slept for a few hours during noontime, because it was far too hot to walk around.
I should have brought a better map, though. Most of the small vialges a came trough were'nt even on it and half of the time I had no clue where I was of if I were heading in the right direction.
The third night I slept near Wels on the riverside and it started raining around midnight. I was too exhaused to get up and look for a better place to spent the night, so I just crawled under my umbrella und put my feet in a plastic bag. I managed to go back to sleep and the rain stopped eventually without soaking me completely.
In the evening when I was too tired to walk any further I usually hitchhiked to the next bigger village and set up my bed for the night. But on the last day I was so fed up with all that and could hardly move my legs anymore and decided that it was enough.
I had planned to hitchhike to Linz any get on a train to Vienna, but the guy who picked me up drove me to a slip road to the motorway and even wrote me a "Vienna"-sign.
A trucker gave me a ride to the suburbs of Vienna and I slept one last night in the open in the coppice. It was by far the worst night. I woke up in the middle of the night, because a huge rat passed near by.
(The last picture is the talisman I made for the trip. I threw it into the Donau when I reached Vienna.)
Long story short - I'm in Vienna now and I feel fantastic. It's such a wonderfu city.
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