at the grave

Before I'll tell you about the final and most important chapter of my journey, I'd like to say some other things.

First: the Photos are up. you can see them here. They are more or less chronological. feel free to comment.

Second: Mosher: Definitely right, to ask for 30£ for petrol from an hitchhiker is a moraly gray area, even if you end up taking only 20£. But I think he knew that. I suspect it, to be one of his reasons for declining a photo. But in the end i think, "hey, that's the universe for you, not everybody can be a frood"
Plus: I could have just as well said "no", but after waiting for four hours next to the express street I was really glad, that somebody hat stoped at all. So in the end, I think we both got, more or less, what we wanted.

Third: I'v been featured on two sites
here and here. Please pay special attention, to the post tags in the second link.
If you know of any other occasions, let me know. It's good for my ego



But now to the culmination of my journey: My time at the grave of Douglas Adams.

I arrived at the gates of Highate Cementery east exactly at 4:56pm on Sunnday the 10th of May 2009.
After a short comedic intermission by the guard, who showed me, how the angel next to Douglas's grave would look like, by imitating it. I dutiful missed the grave, went back, and followed his instructions a second time. This time i was succesful. None of my blog readers would show up, which is of couse my fault, since i had you guys only two hours to react. I'm sorry for that, and intend to blame it entirely on the non existence of any kind of internet cafe, in Dover.
However I wasn't the only person visiting the grave of our beloved prohpet. First i met Mark Grant, he lives in Canada now but has his roots in the UK. He was kind enough to take a picture of me at the grave, and send me copy. As you can see, I had to protect my head with my towel, to avoid reaching any further similarities with bacon.

After Mark had left i sat for a while in the shadows opposit his grave and thought about "how this was the end of my journey, the fullfillment of my wish to hitchhike to his grave".
When suddenly a girl came down the path from the entrance and sat down at Douglas's grave. Unfortunately i dont have any pictures of her face. Because, when she came down the path, she was just a (albeit a rather beautiful) girl, and i've seen those before. But once she was at his grave, I was able to witness a moment so breathtakingly perfect, that i knew, that this was the ultimate ending of my quest. The care she expressed for Douglas and his work by her simple gestures was amazing. I won't bother to even start to describe what exactly she did, because I know, that i dondt possess the power to do justice to the outright perfectness of the moment.
I barely managed to take these pictures before she was gone.
So if by a chance of fate you are, or know this girl, please be (or make her) aware of the deep gratitude I feel, for beeing allowed to witness this moment. I truly feel, as if this was why I left home in the first place. My very own 42.


Some words at the end.
I set out to hitchike to the grave of on of the great philosophers of the 20th century. I dressed in a morning coat in the hope, that people would recognize me, for what i was. A reference to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and would give me a lift, because of that.
But in fact, most of the people who took me with them had never heard of The Guide, so in that sense, my quest wasn't as succesfull, as i would have liked it, to be

This means, however, that the people, who gave me a lift, did so, despite the fact, that i wore a morningcoat and PJs. And that there are people out their, who are willing to do that, is very encouraging for me, and makes me be a little less afraid of the future.

So thank you all. You, who red this blog. You, who commented and encouraged me, both here and on flickr. You, who gave me shelter. And of cause most of all, You, who gave me a lift. Thank you very very much.

meanwhile on my journy

Ok, so here are the missing moments between my last post in Antwerpen and the one from this afternoon.

After I had finished my blog post, i searched for a youth hostel to spend the night at. Google told me, that there'd be on in the vicinity of the main station, so I headed there.

On arriving i discovered, that the hostel in question had been closed down, probably years ago.

After some helpful people had given me new directions, i took a tram to the town's outskirts, where i found the youth-hostel. Meanwhile it was 11pm and only the mercy of the lady at the reception, who had just started to shut things down for the night, when i came in, through a door, that should have been locked allready, saved me, from sleeping outside.

The next day started for me with a lift by Jan Dupour, who was on his way to an open door day at the school he tought architecture at.

He helped me to get on the highway, where i hitched a lift with a salesmann for carpeting named Jurgen Loof. He spoke german quite well, and had even worked for a company based in muniche for a couple of years. While talking about languages he made the point, that english while being quite easy to fundamentaly grasp, due to its limited set of grammatik rules, actualy becomes far more difficult as one progresses, because it has a lot of idiomatic phrases.
German one the other hand, while having a very complex set of basic grammatik rules, is quite easy to learn at a higher level, once one has learned these rules.

Since I learned both languages solely by hearing, I realy can't say much about that. but I certainly find the theorie intriguing.

Jurgen gave me a lift to Kotrijk, from there i got a lift from Wendy, Jonathan and their son Noa, who where the first and only family to gave me a lift, on my journey. And they even shared their food with me. They gave me a Mattetaart, a tasty, typical Beligum, pastry.

After they had dropped me of, and adviced me to go see Brugge if i could manage (wich i'll definatley do on some other journey) I spend several hours, during wich i also made a short excursion to a small but beautiful village next to Brugge, trying to find a good spot to hitch a lift to Calais.

While I was standing at the street, trying to get a car to stop, it happed. I was stoped by a policeman, who thought i might have fled from a nearby asylum. (I belive my grandmother will take special pleasure in this news, as she predicted the exact same thing to happen to me). After I had told him my storie and he had checked my data, he even allowed me, to take his picture. He wouln't tell me his name though, which i can totaly understand.

Shortly after that incident, I was given a lift by Emanuel, a guitarmaker from Oosten, who specialized in classical and barrok guitars and of cause also plays his instruments.

Getting a lift at the gasoline station, Emanuel had droped me of at, was a pain in the a.... It was during that time, that my sunburn got a little fed up with only plaing a small part in my life and decided, that it was time to take center stage, which it did.

After five hours i finaly met Bagias Joszef, a truck driver from Hungaria. He didn't speak a single word english or german and I'm therefore not shure, weather we even spoke about the same things, but i think he told me, that he had two children, and had worked in London before.
He took me to Calais habour, where we arived at about 22:23pm.

Unfortunatley for me, the next ferry, that would take footpassengers, such as myself, was scheduled for 6:50pm.

Because i had no idea, how to get to town, and also doubted, that, even if i would be able to make my way back, i would find a hostel still accepting guests, at that hour, i decidet to sleep outside.

That was around 23:23pm

00:23am I knew, that it was definitley to cold to sleep outside. So I spend the next four hours wandering up and down, partly to keep warm and partly to kill time. Finaly i was able to get into the terminal where i slept for about an hour, before i bought a one way ticket to Dover.

Arriving in Dover, at 7:20am London time, i had to wait until 11:40am befor a car even stoped, which might have been partly due to the fact, that to protect myself from further burning, I had wraped my towel around my head. The man, that had stoped was Rubez. He offered to take me to london provided I would pay him 30£ for gasoline. after haggling him down to 25£ I accepted and we were on our way. Originaly Rubez had intended to take me to London center. But due to unforeseable circumstances (he wasn't able to reach his nine month preagnent wife) he decided to drop me off, at a train station in london, called Sidcup. He gave me 5£ for a day travelcard and off he was. From there I took a train to London Bridge where i finaly found an internet cafe. (Can you belive, there is none in Dover???)

So far for today. I'll write about my time a the grave as soon as I'm back home (I'm going to take a coach back to Germany tomorrow and will arrive there, the day after tomorrow)

Mark> If you could send the Photo to Semphora@gmx.de, that would be amazing.

London

I' just arived in London!
after i spend last night in a rather unpleasent situation, about which i will tell you everything in a later post, i'm finaly here.

Now I'l go and visit the Grave. So especialy to Marc Jones, but also to everybody else, who would like to meet there. i'll be at the grave from 4pm to 5pm today. I'll see you there.

Antwerpen

I just arived in Antwerpen and will be searching for a place to stay the night shortly.
The Journey today was hell. it took me the whole day and four lifts to get here.
(on that note: not taking a map wasn't my best idea, that much's for shure)
But aside from feeling a little peckish im allright.

Standing for hours waiting for a lift wouldn't be so bad, if the wind wouln'd be so strong but that's Holland for you.

Belgium, where i'm right now, looks totaly different from Holland.
First thing i noticed were the streets, wich where in noticable worse shape in the blink of an eye. Antwerpen itself looks almsot Eastern European to me especialy the main station. (Pictures later because again no CF-Card reader).

My journey today started with an inner Amsterdam lift from an old man, who looked so grumpy, i was afraid to ask for his name. He took me to a place directly next to the highway where i stood for maybe 20minutes in a place, specially designed for hitchhikers.

From there Abdel, who owns and runs a job agency in Amsterdam, gave me a lift to a gasstation on the A2 highway. Unfortunatley i forgot to give him the adress of this blog. So if, by a strange coincidence you happen to knwo him (i will be posting a foto, as soon as i can), please tell him.

Rene von Luxemburg (whose name i cant properly type, cause i cant find the key for that thingy over the e) gave me a lift from there. He showed me, that i was hitchhiking on the wrong highway and suggested the route i'm hitching now, to me.
After he had droped me off at one of the larger gasstation it took me about 3 hours and two new signs to find my next lift.

Finaly Gerben, a webdesigner and Linux system administrator, who gave somebody a lift for the first time, took me to Breda, where i got a lift almost immediatly by a man and a woman whom i did'nt understand at all, nor did they me. they were the first people i met, who would'nt let me take their picture. but maybe they thought, i wanted to give them my kamera as payment, who knows.

Strange thought of the day: Why not arrange your library by the first letter of the first sentence? (works for all kinds of media realy)

still alife

hi there,
I'm still alive and in Amsterdam, where it's apparently impossible to find a internecafe that lets you use your memory card, so no pictures today.

it took me about 1 1/2 hours and a mild sunburn to get a lift from Enschede, not to mention, that I changed my position two times. Finaly a frood called Wender van Mansfeld gave me a lift to Amsterdam. He's working as a security consultant for a big firm but, as it turns out, still roots for the thiefs in heist movies, because they do the same as he does, just in reverse.

On my arival in Amsterdam i took a bed in a Hostel. I shared a room with two guys. One, a backpacker on the search for the best weed, the other a student from canada who, on his own account, is a "experienced mushroom tripper"

more on Amsterdam later, as my internet time is coming to a rapid end.
Im now on my way south to Calais

Enschede

This is where I am right now.

Grotere kaart weergeven


This is the weather on my way here: horrible!

which means, it can only get better.

and this is the hoopy, who gave me a lift



Tomorrow I'll try to hitch a lift to Amsterdam. I'm thinking of taking a ferry to NewCastle from there, but i'm not shure about that yet. Some people have asked me, how i intend to cross the Canal. The answer is, I dont know yet. I guess the most elegant way would be to hitch a lift on a car going over. But I'm not shure wether tickets are bought per car or per passenger. We'll see about that, when the time comes.

Three things i used my towel for today:
I protection against rain
II pillow
III to keep my lap from comming in contact with my hot dinner while sitting in a rocking chair.

now i'm off to taste Enschede's best icecream.

i'm of

IMG_2654
Originally uploaded by semphora

thank you for all your good wishes and idears. it's realy encouraging.

this is me in my full attire. as you can see, my towel is used to withstand the forces of weather. which isa horrible. but the moment you read this i'm allready sitting in a car driving towards the neatherlands. next time you'l hear from me, it will be from somewhere along the way.

advanced hitchhiking

I just hitched my first lift, sitting in my parents living room.

While asking for a contact adress, where i could crash in an emergency i was offered a lift to Enschede (NL). After short hesitation (its more or less half my tour after all) i acepted.
This means my journey wont start until wednesday but hey, if the universe decides to throw me a bone now, who am i to disagre? and i figure its going to become difficult soon enough.

1207 km...

..is aparently the distance between Rambin and Highgate cementery

While searching for the location of Douglas's grave i found this website.  Which just further proves the point that you can find anything on the net. And here is the link to Douglas's site

Größere Kartenansicht

Douglas Adams memorial hitchhiking

Hi, I'm Mathias-Emanuel Hartmann, and on May the 5th 2009 i'm going to atempt to hitchhik from Rambin (a small village in the north of Germany) to London Highgate Cementery, to visit the grave of Douglas Adams, with nothing but my morning coat and a (not so batterd) copy of the guide. (and of cause my trusted towel.)

Why? who knows?

On this blog i'm going to collect short episodes and pictures from my journey, whenever i'm able to find a internet connection on the way.

If you have comments, places to go, to sleep, happen to go in the same direction or are just an altogether together frood, leave a comment.