From Genova to Vienna. Italy is not a great place for hitchhikers...

The sun began to rise over the skies of Genoa and we started walking towards the gas station we chose to start the trip. The mood was high because it would be the first time traveling together with James after hitchhiking Malaysia a couple of years ago.

It took an hour to walk to the station, just off the A7 motorway. I treated myself to a delicious Spanish breakfast (coffee and cigarettes) and started asking people. One problem was that the station was next to the police station. In most European countries is prohibited for safety reasons to hitch in highways, but no problems at the stations, and the police is not a problem. I had cases of police stopping cars and asking if they could give me a lift. But in Italy the police are one of the less friendly of the old continent, and for reasons no one could ever explain to me is also forbidden to ask the cars parked in auto grills and petrol stations. As James speaks only English and is a little more introverted, we split. He stood at the entrance of the highway with a sign and I asked the drivers in the service station. After a while, Franklin offered to take us to Brescia, about 250 kms. He was from Ecuador and had been for the last 10 years working in Italy. We went all the way talking about how life was in northern Italy, richer and generally less friendly than the south, the differences across countries and he told me what life was like in his country.
Finally we said goodbye at an Autogrill, a kind of restaurant-gas station on the highway, and continued. I took a good fix of coffee to compensate the long night without sleep, and kept asking everyone. The minutes were melting under the warm summer sun, and despite having a few conversations with people standing around we wasn't so lucky for a while. Until we met Sandro, with his lovely accent and charm characteristic of the region of Rome.

We were talking a little of everything, and he offered to leave us in a huge parking lot for international trucks off the highway, where he said it would be very easy to get a direct lift to Vienna. For longer distances, my golden rule number one is to stick to the highway. My golden rule number two is also to stick to the highway. But James and I consulted and thought that a local truck driver would know much more than two backpackers, so we decided to follow his advice. Wrong. The place was almost empty due to the holiday season, and the few trucks seem to go in another direction or spent all day resting. After like two hours, I decided to go to the bar to get information and change the strategy. After chatting for a while and look around a bit, one of the girls said she could escape a few minutes from work and give us a ride to the next gas station, on the A4 motorway. Once there, everything was easier. About three minutes after arriving, I see two guys waving at me. They were French and were travelling in a truck converted into a beautiful home. The conversation was moreless like this:
"Bonjour! Where you going?""Uhm, to Vienna ...""We are going to Croatia, come! We can take you 300 km. to the crossroad. Have a coffee and put the bag here!...""Wow, thanks! But I'm traveling with another dude from New Zealand.""Ouiii, no problem! Tell him to come!
And so we left. It felt good to be moving again, especially among people with whom I felt comfortable, and I loved having the chance to practice my French again. We were listening to good french reggae all the way, laughing a lot and talking about travelling, people and dreams of a restless youth. We stopped for gas, and we found two hitchhikers from Hungary returning home. Tibor, the driver, took only ten seconds to tell them to come with us, and we started again. The sun was setting, illuminating everything with the dim light of dusk when they left all of us in a good spot where the highway is turns. We took some pictures and said goodbye wishing each other the best of luck: "If I don't see you anymore, have a great life!..." 

 The place was full of trucks, but they all seemed to go in another direction. After a while, a very friendly Polish truck driver told us it was because the Austrian motorways were too expensive for trucks, so they all avoided them. It was late, and as we were very tired decided to camp in a nearby grove for the night. We woke at dawn the following day and started searching again. After a couple of hours we decided that the most clever thing would be to take the alternative route across Slovenia, and before long a few French boys offered to take 200 kms. to Maribor, close to the border with Austria. They were going to visit friends in Hungary and after doing a little traveling around Europe.

Then, a van took us for a short trip to a gas station before Graz, just 200 kms. before Vienna. We were stuck there for a while, because most of cars were super charged and appeared to go mainly to the Czech Republic and Germany. After a couple of hours, a couple of girls agreed to take us to Vienna. They thought it twice, talked among themselves and decided we looked like good people and didn't smell too bad, so we left. We were chatting all the way, in English for the first time in a while, enjoying the scenery.

In the evening we stopped in a metro (subway) in the suburbs and said goodbye. We snuck in the subway, and went directly to Elisabeth's house, where a long night's sleep awaited...