From a rabbi to Robert Kubicka: A hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy (well, Spain, France, Switzerland and Poland) Part Four: Somewhere in France to somewhere else in France, but this time near Switzerland

Rain

The English. That was the first surprise I encountered. But not the jolly, friendly English. No. The middle class, pompous, bigoted 'we've hired a people carrier in southern France' kind of English.

Mind you, I was finding it hard to disguise my hidden agenda.

Anyway, once they were swiftly encountered I moved onto my next target. A French lady who was stood at the bar in the cafeteria. Sadly, pleasant though she was, she was heading in the wrong direction, towards Bordeaux. Tempting though it was to turn round and give up on my adventure to return home, I declined her offer of a lift.

Moreover, my luck was just about to take a turn for the better.

Just outside the cafeteria and near the exit of the gas station, a driver-by asked me: "Where are you off to?"

"Lyon," I responded, though I wanted to go further. In fact, for a joke, I wanted to say Warsaw but then maybe my abstract sense of humour might be lost on the French. Actually, it tends to be lost on the English too. So much so that I am beginning to doubt whether I have a sense of humour at all.

No matter.

Rain

"And where are you off to?" I continued.

"Lyon," came the welcome response. "Let's go," the driver said in near perfect English.

The next few hours flew by (slight exaggeration) in the midst of a conversation about linguistics in which I was largely out of my depth. Nevermind. I bluffed my way through it.

He (I can't remember his name, probably Pierre) dropped me off at a petrol station just the other side of Lyon and I awaited my next stroke of luck.

And yet more rain

There was free internet so I used and abused this service until just after 8 o'clock when the station closed. I was soon on my way again when another man took me further in the direction of Geneva. He had just dropped off his daughter who was returning to university. That is all I can remember from the one hour journey, apart from the fact that the spitting rain turned into an avalanche of rain.

Now I guess you are wondering, if you are still with me at this point, where the rabbi and Robert Kubicka come into play. Well, you will have to read the next excerpt. Oh, what a tease.

From a rabbi to Robert Kubicka: A hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy (well, Spain, France, Switzerland and Poland) Part Two: Biarritz to somewhere in southern France

I waited just twenty minutes for my next driver but this time he took me just a couple of kilometres up the road. He dropped me at a toll station, which I figured could be a good place to hitch from due to the slow moving traffic I was trying to hail down. Five hours later I began to review this belief. I spoke to several drivers but all seemed to be heading back towards Spain and not Bordeaux, my next destination.

I trudged back to the town centre of Biarritz and bought a train ticket to the aforementioned French city, sleeping all the way.

Once in Bordeaux I managed to access free wifi at the train station and checked out what hitchwiki had to say regarding a good location to hitch from. I made my way there and got picked up by a guy en route. He dropped me outside an amazing bakery.

There I had mixed fortunes. Great food but I waited two hours in drizzling rain. To add to my chagrin, plenty of people pulled over, only to dash both into the bakery and my hopes too.

When I was eventually picked up I was taken 15kms into the direction of Lyon, the destination that at this stage I hoped to reach by sundown (excuse the cowboy terminology). Sadly, I was, naively on my part, dumped on the hard shoulder of the highway. Just seconds later it began to rain… incessantly.

Luckily the downpour lasted less than ten minutes and I managed to find a toll station once more. I never thought the sight of these road payment stations would be so welcome.

I waited less than five minutes for my next lift. An eccentric lady in her early 60s, who had half of Kew Gardens in the back of her car, managed to make enough room for me to squeeze in beside her (steady).

What was pleasantly surprising was her standard of English - extremely high. And she took me almost 60 kms to the next set of toll booths so I was starting to make some headwind with just over 48 hours until kick off in Warsaw.