All was good. Starting from Estonia and Latvia until one fatal moment when I got a ride from Lithuania to Poland. I was standing in the middle of Lithuania in a very important road curve (its importance is still under question) hitching my way to South when a big black 4x4 picked me up the driver being this 50 year old thin Azerbaijan who grew up in Ukraine and was currently living in Estonia Tartu. He was heading back to Ukraine to L'viv and was quite talkative. I tried to speak Russian and somehow managed. Then as I was rather tired I made a mistake. He had this really unnerving smile that I didn't notice in the beginning, so I should've stayed awake, but no. I fell asleep as we were riding a 4--5 hour stretch. Then at some point in Poland he pulled off the road telling that he wants to eat. He went deep into bushes and I started panicking a little. He told me he was just turning around while I was mentally checking where's my nerve gas (which I had never thought of while hitch hiking). But it was okay, he went out and offered me some coffee and food. After eating we sat back into the car and were looking at the map on where to go. But suddenly he put his arm around my head and tried to lean in. Everything was in slow motion, there were thousand thoughts bursting trough my head, calmly planning on how to get out of this situation. I grabbed the door really fast threw my stuff out and tried to get my head out of his grip. He saw it and started laughing. "No, no you stupid girl, this is Ukrainian politeness" but I could see that he was feeling as nervous than I was. There's a small bond of trust between the driver and the hitch hiker and by doing that he annihilated it. I took my stuff and we continued, but I felt claustrophobic and a need to get out. The guy tried to explain that he has 2 daughters back in Estonia and stuff like that, but I couldn't believe anything he said.
Finally we got to a city called Bialystok where was some wonderful road construction giving me time to bond with my horrible driver. At one point I saw that a sign was showing that Warsaw is straight, but as the guy was heading South he turned left. I couldn't take it. I told him that it was not my way and he kept telling me that, he's not sure which direction to take and finally asked if I wanted to get off. I said an undeniable yes and in front of the traffic light he went out and threw my bags out. I said thanks and he drove off. That event has haunted me since. I have been hitch hiking for years now and that was one of the first events that my adrenaline got a chance. I mean, it was a bad experience, but I think it rather teaches me to be more careful in the future. I love hitch hiking and will not stop. This was just something to learn from.
Anyway after getting out of that car I went on my dumpster diving mission to get some card board and found my fate waiting behind a big green smelly dumpster. I took the cardboard and wrote Warsaw on it. Walked a little till a nice green port-a-potty where I barely fit in because of my stuff, but it had some wonderful toilet paper, which was nice comfort and I stuffed some of it in my pockets for later fun use. Finally reaching the read to Warsaw I decided to ask a man standing next to it if it was the right road or not. With my crappy Russian I asked and he started to explain in such a fast and fluid Russian, that I felt that I wanted to slap him, but somewhere in the mid blabbering I heard the words Warsaw, yes, there. I tried to sneak away thanking him, but in the mid sneak I remembered something about trains going from there to Warsaw-Berlin. So I tried again, I went back and because I couldn't remember how is a train in Russian I asked "Where tsuckha-tsuckha-tsuckha toot-toot?" and he started explaining. Again I was confused as he spoke so fast and didn't seem to care that my language skills were below average, so I asked the same thing again, this time with according moves "Where tsuckha-tsuckha-tsuckha toot-toot?" and then I saw myself as other people would see, a girl standing next to a road with a big bag, pretending to be a train to a blabbering Russian. It was funny, plus no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't understand him. So I said thanks several times and ran off on to the road. No one wanted to pick me up and most of the cars were local Bialystok cars. It started to rain and I kept on standing there with my sign, till a very nice classical polish truck driver picked me up.
He was a little bald, but he was a good person. As I was still in a kind of shock I didn't pursue a very long conversation. Still he gave me the best sandwich I've had in days and a nice tomatoe. I ate it gratefully as we were plowing trough the rain.
He dropped me off in a big truck stop on the road to Warsaw and there were some nice Estonian truck drivers. I chatted a while and then went to the road side as it was getting rather dark already. No trucks were going anymore and I stood there for a while. Until I was picked up by the cutest little red car...
That's my non hitc hiking hand.
To be continued...
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