The time came to finally hitchhike my way out of Austria and take the Croatian direction... I had spend the last couple of days in Graz where there was an strange, yet amazing, several days long party. Against all wise thoughts I left on a Monday morning, public holiday and I was waiting at the highway entrance of an industrial/commercial zone.
My good feeling about this proved to be correct and some 250 cars later a nice Croatian family brought me to Maribor in Slovenia.
Another Croatian stopped fairly fast but since his English and my Croatian where both very bad, we had some serious problems to understand each other. I understood he wasn't going to take the highway but he came from Zagreb, so I decided I should just jump into the car. What I didn’t' understand was that although he lived in Zagreb he was staying in Slovenia, and instead of bringing me in one line to the Croatian border we took many small roads (I got totally lost but I enjoyed the view) to a point close to the Slovenian/Croatian/Hungarian border where he literally dropped me at the border.
No other choice than to walk through it I suppose. Although they were looking a bit surprised at the Slovenian border to see me leave the country that way they let me pass and I continued the road to the Croatian border. There it was another story of course. I was looked upon as a vagabond and they kept aggressing me with the typical border questions. In the meanwhile there was a lonely dog that was, just like me, trying to cross the Croatian border, but he had less luck I guess. Two guardians rushed to him and try to "shoo" him back into Slovenia. The whole scene was tremendously funny. It gave such a cartoon-like impression that I started to laugh at the laurel and hardy scene (because one was a fat guy while the other was small and skinny). Without thinking about it I took my camera and was ready to immortalize the whole scene. BIG BIG error. Not only was I stopped in time to take any picture but my enjoyment of their problems was not taken so well. The result? Well they disappeared with my passport for a long while, checked out my bag, asked many other unrelated questions and made sure I paid my joy with almost 2 hours of pure boredom. When they finally let me go they said I had to take the regional way and wasn't allowed to hitchhike in the vicinity of the border. Like the good hitchhiker I am I didn't listen and put my thumb up right before the highway (there is a big board there that says hitchhiking is forbidden..such boards usually indicate it is good place to do so actually) and some 20 cars later a nice Turkish guy and his colleague took me to Zagreb. He was one of the nicest people that took me so far and had a bag full of cloths for poor people. He offered me a very good looking sweater from it that I turned very fond of. It is warm, fun to wear and is probably one of my favorite pieces of clothing now. We shared stories; he gave me advice and said I had to look up his company in Istanbul if I was in need for work.
We all understand the moral of this story right? Never ever laugh or make jokes at the border! I knew this already, but it can happen so suddenly and in an unexpected way that the danger is always present. I am grateful this happened now already, and not at some other border where more problems in such a case would be unavoidable.
Once again, thanks Omar...I really cherish this new sweater and the memory attached to it.
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