David Grajal

To describe the traffic in India you only need two words: Organized Chaos. The traffic is a mix of cars, bicycles, motorbikes, trucks, buses, ox carts pulling goods, rickshaws, cows and goats, sometimes monkeys near temples and lots of stray dogs… all of them driving fighting for the same space on the road!

There are traffic rules but the police not really enforce it, and with good reason: The traffic in India is massive in numbers, and there is a slow but consistent flow of vehicles. If you make the people enforce the traffic laws, you will make everything slower, the people will become frustrated and they will try to do even more amazing stunts to flow trough the traffic. It’s amazing to just sit down on a busy crossroad and watch the traffic. It’s more entertaining than a good movie!

In the last months I have met a lot of adventurous people that consider hitchhiking a transportation medium. Honestly, I had never consider hitchhike anywhere before. In mainland Spain it’s not popular at all. But now I’m living in central Europe where hitchhiking is popular, safe and even encouraged by the government. Besides, I’m reading “Round Ireland with a fridge” which is about a guy that decides to hitchhike around the country with a big domestic appliance for fun. I was in the correct mindset and I wanted to give it a try: I was going to hitchhike somewhere just for the sake of doing it.

First of all I needed a place to go. My objective was to reach Salzburg in France, around 300km away from Würzburg. Hitchhiking in 2009  it’s a lot easier than 20 years ago because the technology make it easy for everybody. There are lots of pages on the Internet describing tips and tricks, what to do to get lifts, how to dress and the correct spots in each city to get lifts. I spend a couple of days researching all of this documentation. I also researched the best hitchhike route which meant going to Strasbourg via Stuttgart. I even prepared at home the sign I was going to use. Here it is.

Amateur hitchhiker sign

So I went to the best spot in Würzburg, the big gas station on the A3 highway. Once there I asked a couple what was the correct direction to go to Stuttgart. I was in the incorrect side so I needed to cross the highway.  20 minutes later I reached the correct big gas station. It looked perfect, with a huge rest area with lots people and a constant flow of cars entering the station.

So I started asking the people with a big smile in my face. The people smile me back happily but all of them rejected me. It was a huge failure. No one seemed to go to Stuttgart, all the people in the station was heading to Frankfurt. Once I finished asking all the people in the rest area one guy told me he was coming from Stuttgatt so I should be asking the people on the other side of the highway.

That was the reason! I went back to the gas station at the other side of the highway and I started asking the people with renovated energies. The reaction was the same, all the people was smiling me back but all of them were going to Munich. After some minutes a girl came to me and told me she was coming from Stuttgart so I should be on the other side of the highway.

I was screwed. There was not consensus! People were coming from Stuttgart from both directions!

It was a bad spot to get a ride to Stuttgart. I decided to change the plan. In the first station everybody seemed to go to Frankfurt so I decided to go to Frankfurt instead of Stuttgart and then figure out how to go to Strasbourg from Frankfurt. I went back to the first gas station and I prepared a new sign.

Semi-pro hitchhiker sign

There are important improvements over the first sign. It was difficult for the people to read the coloured bubble letters even at 2 meters of distance so I decided to draw clear black lines in this new version.

I was convinced that finding a ride to Frankfurt was going to be easy as cake this time. I started asking the people on the station, with a huge smile in my face. Most of the people give me back a smile but all of them rejected me. Some of them told me “Frankfurt? No, I’m heading to Stuttgart” so I answered “Stuttgart is fine also” while showing the original sign. This people were screw. This is a tip, if you don’t want to take a hitchhiker don’t say you are going to other place because the hitchhiker CAN also want to go there and you will feel really stupid telling him “NO” anyway.

After 20 minutes asking people I decided to change my strategy.  I decided to be more emotional on the banner. I looked like a perfect hitchhiker and I was convinced I only needed to let the people feel sorry for me. The best way I could think was to let them think I was travelling in Europe and my home was far, far away. I drew a new sign.

Hitchhiker sign

Don’t ask my why did I draw the flower, maybe to give the impression I am a peaceful guy and I was not going to slaughter anybody. I turned around and I start people again.  The third guy I asked gave me a lift. It took 15 seconds.

I founded the key. I was a hitchhiker!

The guy was actually heading to Belgium so I told him to drop me in Cologne instead of Frankfurt . I love it, I was changing the plans on the fly. I was not going to Strasbourg after all, my destiny was guiding me to Cologne. Once we got close to Cologne the guy drop me in a Gas Station. This was a novice error. Yes, I was in Cologne, but very far from downtown. No problem, we are in 2009 and I had technology support. I used Google Mapson my cell to locate a train station at walking distance. 20 minutes later I was in Cologne, in front of the biggest German cathedral. Wohoooo!

This weekend I’ve come to Madrid, to visit some friends and to meet Juan García, a Telefonica I+D engineer who worked on Movistar Contacta, a Facebook application with same functionality of my Call for free with Simio. He wanted me to work for him as freelance, an idea who has been rounding my head for some time and it’s becoming a serious option for me right now.

Today I’ve been visiting my old University and helped my old roommates to ‘upgrade’ their Wii to play Mario Galaxy. This have been my first time playing Mario Galaxy and it has been a lot of fun. It’s so much better than Mario Sunshine.

Problem is, I arrived Madrid’s Chamartin train station too late and I’ve had the most frustrating experience in my life: I arrived just in time to see how my train was leaving the station. Shit!. I rushed to the machines to buy a ticket for another train but the last bullet train was complete. Shit!

So I rushed all the city down to Madrid’s South Bus Station to get a bus to Valladolid but by the time I’ve arrived, there were no available seats until the bus at 1:30am. Shit!

So I’m writing this post while seated in a corner of the station because I need to wait 3 hours for the bus. I’m making fun of myself, basically I’m trapped in Madrid because I wanted to play Mario Galaxy. Meanwhile, I’m speaking with a 18 years old german guy who come last year to study mathematics on Salamanca’s University. A very interesting guy indeed… You need to be very brave to come to Spain with 18 years, without knowing the languaje to start a regular university course.

The German guy just leave to Salamanca and now I’m with an Hungarian guy who is waiting for a girl. He doesn’t understand Spanish, not even English and has been an odyssey to understand that he want me to lend him some money to call the girl. Lost in translation. I’m thinking… this same is also going to happen to me when in Korea.

It’s a lot of fun to be seated in a corner looking what happen around with all the people moving forward their lives. 90% of them are a mix of hungarians, rumanians and africans. There are several überhot brazilian girls (high-heeled!) walking around too. It’s like being in an airport but without glamour. It’s a lot of fun to be here

And now I’m seated in the bus on my way to Valladolid. I’ve been the last hour walking around in the station, discovering the underworld hidden under the scenes. I’ve been reading about the crazy 2 days and a half journey across Europe Polish and Ucranian people need to suffer to arrive here. I also have a disgusting experience while in the washroom with an old man who was masturbating by my side.

I’ve been ‘playing‘ with a automatic machine designed to print your pictures and I discovered the machine copy all the pictures of the media inserted (trough memory sticks, memory cards, IRDA, bluetooth or CD) to their internal hard disk. It has been interesting to see the collection of pictures stored by the machine. Portraits, lots of pictures of babies, a lot of pictures of the security team of the station, and some very sensual pictures. Bed pictures. Nothing explicit, thought. I think I’m going to stop using print machines until they have better security measures!

But the best discover has been a strange vending machine. It’s located in an isolated area and appear to be a normal machine, but it’s the selection of products what made it special. You can buy here condoms, lubricant, vibrators, tampons or sanitary towels. If you are hungry you can also buy baby’s food or breakfast cereals. Amazingly, price is cheaper than in pharmacy! It would be a good place to buy if I weren’t unsure of how frecuently they change the products, thought.

UPDATE

This is a picture of the strange vending machine. It was taken with my cell so the quality is awful.

I love the following parody of US education and international politics

Seen in Franchu’s blog

Nation Of Andorra Not In Africa, Shocked U.S. State Dept. Reports

(Fixed video on 16.01.2010)