Day 2: Zwolle - Oldenburg

This day was a lot harder than the first one.
In Zwolle my CS host Yvonne had led me out of the city to a good spot to hitchhike. It was quite hard to get a ride, not many cars went on the highway.
A few cars stopped, a full one with  a group of people around my age interested in where I was going to and another one with people who say I had a map and needed one.

Highway on-ramp behind me

After about an hour of waiting a guy stopped who could bring me closer to Meppel.
He was on his way to a coach who would help him get his life back on track after a few missteps.
He dropped me off at quite a good spot right in front of some traffic lights.

traffic lights behind me, loads of space for cars to pull over

After about 15 minutes a woman stopped.
She had experience with hitchhiking herself and quite often picked up hitchhikers. A few days earlier she had picked up 2 students from Ghent, BE.
She dropped me off at a ramp with which you could switch highways. I was a bit confused about where I should stand. After a while I noticed my drink bottle was running low (I only had one bottle left, I lost the other bottle in a car the day before)
Luckily there were some farms nearby where I could refill my bottle.

up th hill of previous 2 photo's, should I cross this bridge? :o

While walking back to my spot a car stopped for me.
I think it was a man and his mother.
They were on their way to Emmen. They dropped me off at the ramp that went straight in to Germany.
SSo in one way this was the perfect spot since most traffic was driving in to Germany but unfortunately not many cars came by.
In total I stood there for about 3 hours in full sun without any trees or any other form of shade.
I put on my sweater just to cover my arms, which were already a bit burned, from the sun.

Hitchhike spot of motherfucking hell

These don't look poisonous at all!

In the time I was standing there the Dutch police came by and stopped. They said, as expected, that I wasn't allowed to hitchhike there. But I was allowed to continue as long as I didn't again.

Finally 2 guys stopped who were on their way to Meppen, a place just across the border where they would go swimming. A big lake full of blue water they described it. They dropped me off at quite a good spot. It was a busy road, autobahn I think, with lights to let pedestrians cross.

After a not too long time a man stopped who unfortunately only spoke German. I tried to explain that I needed to go to Oldenburg but didn't succeed 100% so I let the man drive on.
Apparently a 100% explanation wasn't needed because 2 minutes later he passed by again signaling that I could get in the car.
He would drive me to a trucker spot about 20ish KM futher. The conversation didn't go very smoothly of course, but we managed to get by with some German-English-Dutch mix.

At the trucker stop I had to wait for about 20 to 30 minutes until a Turkish guy with his wife and daughter arrived. He was a crazy enthousiastic guy. This was also the first time thet I was a bit scared about a driver's driving behavior.
He would pass by cars any chance he got on a 2-lane 2-direction road (so driving on the wrong lane to gain on people)
He would often pass by people with only seconds left before the opposing traffic would storm by.
But I arrived safely. And for the rest it was a very fun ride, again he was a very enthusiastic man :D
He drove me all the way to Kloppenburg, about 40 KM from Oldenburg.

There, after quite some time walking to the north of town I quite quickly found a ride all the way to Oldenburg.
This man was on his way home from work. He worked in the R&D department of a bicycle company. Mainly working on E-bikes.
He dropped me off at the central station of Oldenburg, only a few streets from where I needed to be.