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| God's ear: a rabbi points the way to Geneva |
I asked him if he spoke English. He said "non" so the initial conversation was conducted in French. He appeared so horrified by my attempts that suddenly he managed to muster some English. And it was more than adequate for us to converse until we got to Geneva.
"Are you married?" he asked
From anyone else I would've interpreted this as being a little forward but this was coming from someone who had God's ear, though obviously not Jesus's.
"No," I replied.
"You should marry someone who likes to travel."
"And someone with a car," I mused.
He didn't laugh. I decided to put it down to the language barrier.
"Have you felt the presence of God on this journey?" said the inquisitive rabbi.
"Between Brive-la-Gaillarde and Lyon, quite possibly. But the rest I'm not so sure," I responded.
Not even a smirk was apparent from my driver. Perhaps I was being too smug, particularly for someone whose life was in someone else's hands.
In the blink of an eye Geneva was upon us and I was seeking my next lift. I headed to the lake and sought a trip to Lausanne, or perhaps, if I was to be lucky, Zürich.
A young lad soon pulled up and took me a couple of kilometres to a petrol station where I met a Swiss-French guy who I imposed myself upon.
At first I thought he was going to take me to Lausanne, then Basel seemed to be possible. However, we couldn't communicate in a language either of us understood and, eventually, he dropped me off at a petrol station about six kilometres past Lausanne.
Sadly, the next stroke of luck didn't occur for quite some time. My evening was spent residing in a phone box in an attempt to keep warm, as the gas station was closed and about two cars came through all night.
There was one chink of light, though: I managed, through the wonders of technology, to book a seat in a car through mitfahrgelegentheit (a carpooling website) from Munich to Warsaw. I just needed to get to the Bavarian city by 17:00 to catch that lift. Possible, but I needed a helping hand and this was, on current form, not forthcoming.
I was just ticking off the minutes, which took all night unsurprisingly, until the cafeteria adjacent to the station opened.
When it did I must have asked about 100 people for a lift to Basel, Bern or Zürich but no-one seemed interested in my plight. It was also surprising how few people spoke either English or German, particularly as the latter is one of Switzerland's official languages.
After a further 90 minutes passed by I decided to speed up my journey by taking a step back, to take two steps forward. After all, I had to be in Warsaw within 36 hours.
