some go east
some go east mountain some go east mountain

Hitchhiking and Couchsurfing

oradea-theory.jpg
posted on 28 Nov 2015 Oradea — 17 Oct 2015 oradea-theory.jpg

After taking public transport in Hungary I picked up hitchhiking again from Debrecen, Hungary, to Oradea, Romania.

I quickly found a ride all the way to Oradea, but the Romanian driver was not really paying attention when he picked me up and he ran a red light at the same moment a police car drove by. Oops! We had to stop and the driver got out to talk to the police. It turned out to be more like shouting instead of talking. I had no idea why. Expecting that the driver had to go to the police station, I started collecting my stuff again to start looking for another ride. But surprisingly, he got in again and we could go on. Weird.

It then got even weirder when the driver asked me for directions on how to get to Oradea. So I just started guiding us through smaller villages and across the border until we safely got to my next destination.

In Oradea I was meeting my second Couchsurfing-host, Bea. She is an architecture and psychology student and loves music as well. So she proposed to take me to a concert of a Romanian band (Theory of Mind) in the evening at the really cool, artsy, rough Moskva bar. The fact that smoking is (still) allowed in bars added a lot to the rough atmosphere of the place.

Theory of Mind at Moskva bar in Oradea: Theory of Mind at Moskva

The band was quite good. It reminded me of Pinback.

I was really glad to have made it to Romania while hitchhiking again. I was ready to start the new journey :-) The combination of hitchhiking and Couchsurfing makes the trip really interesting because I'm meeting a lot of different, and mostly local, people. These people can tell me a lot about the current situation and show me around to their favorite places. An added bonus of traveling like this is of course the low budget that is needed. More people should try it!

Thanks you, Bea, for the lovely stay at your place. Say hi to Tara the dog for me :).

Here are some more pictures of Orada: The sunny pedestrian street in Oradea A church in Oradea

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