7) #1 Hitchhiking Story:
This was a category fraught with competition. It was like watching a race between 3 or 4 stories, running around and round inside my head, when, at the last moment, a dark horse rode came out from the shadows of memory and won by a nose. It beat out the ride from the Jehovah's Witness who bought me lunch, the ride from the Private Detective in an ancient minivan on the country roads back to Paris, and the ride from the Czech truck driver who bought me a 1.5 liter water bottle filled with beer. The winner was from a time in Germany. I was trying to get from Köln to Hannover and was having no luck. I got to a gas station (Tankstelle) and asked a pretty straight-laced guy in his mid-40s if he'd give me a ride. He said it would be no problem and that he would make his kids sit in the back seat. So I made it pretty far with this Pater Familias and his two kids--a 16-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl--both of whom didn't mind relinquishing shotgun to some vagabonding American. Both of the kids had that quizzical look in their eyes that betrayed the novelty of the situation. I felt like how American tourists must feel in parts of China without the propositioning and profiteering. Unfortunately, they took a highway that got me closer but farther at the same time: slightly off course.
Then I was stuck for a good long while. I tried standing at a gas station for about an hour, but no one seemed to be going that far. Finally, I stood right at the on-ramp and after about 20 minutes got a ride from the cutest Dutch couple in a convertible VW bug--(a new one). 
They even had a flower in the flower holder. Unfortunately, they were exiting the highway onto another highway and there was no good place for me to "aussteigen". So I got out right on the on-ramp that connected the two highways. And after a lot of really dirty looks from the people passing, someone finally stopped. It was two blond-hair, blue-eyed men in their mid-20s, early-30s in peak physical shape, wearing sunglasses, and driving a white car with green lettering and flashing blue lights: Polizei! It was a good thing I spoke some German. First: "Was machen Sie hier?" Then: "Sie können nicht hier bleiben." Then: "[something, something] Passport." Then, he went back in the car, did some computing or some conversing (or just stalled for time to increase the suspense) and then finally came back. "Wir werden Sie mitnehmen nach die nächste ausfahrt." And then, while in the car, going nearly 200km/h: "Die nächste ausfahrt ist nicht gut für Sie. Es gibt ein Tankstelle die ist besser." So they took me about 30km down the road. I was taking this opportunity for make Smalltalk. They wanted to know if I was trampen all around Europe. And that's when I learned how to say hitchhiking in German. Finally got to the Tankstelle and I waited (and waited) und so weiter. The German vs. England World Cup game was on, so there wasn't much traffic on the road. And so it was not surprising that the people who ended up giving me a ride weren't even German but Polish. They were headed back from Holland to Poland and could take me pretty close to Hannover. Score.
They even had a flower in the flower holder. Unfortunately, they were exiting the highway onto another highway and there was no good place for me to "aussteigen". So I got out right on the on-ramp that connected the two highways. And after a lot of really dirty looks from the people passing, someone finally stopped. It was two blond-hair, blue-eyed men in their mid-20s, early-30s in peak physical shape, wearing sunglasses, and driving a white car with green lettering and flashing blue lights: Polizei! It was a good thing I spoke some German. First: "Was machen Sie hier?" Then: "Sie können nicht hier bleiben." Then: "[something, something] Passport." Then, he went back in the car, did some computing or some conversing (or just stalled for time to increase the suspense) and then finally came back. "Wir werden Sie mitnehmen nach die nächste ausfahrt." And then, while in the car, going nearly 200km/h: "Die nächste ausfahrt ist nicht gut für Sie. Es gibt ein Tankstelle die ist besser." So they took me about 30km down the road. I was taking this opportunity for make Smalltalk. They wanted to know if I was trampen all around Europe. And that's when I learned how to say hitchhiking in German. Finally got to the Tankstelle and I waited (and waited) und so weiter. The German vs. England World Cup game was on, so there wasn't much traffic on the road. And so it was not surprising that the people who ended up giving me a ride weren't even German but Polish. They were headed back from Holland to Poland and could take me pretty close to Hannover. Score. 
Literally: score. During the whole train trip into Hannover, like my dad at the dinner table, the conductor would periodically give us a score update--usually good news for Germany. I took the train into the city and was greeted by an Insane Clown Posse of German soccer hooligans celebrating Germany's win (or England's defeat). (Can you imagine ICP doing a tour of Germany? Verdammt Magnete, wie functioniern sie?) Germans don't get to be very nationalistic any more, so any socially acceptable time and place to let it out, it ejaculates like from a firehose. All their rules and order are thrown out of the open car windows from which bare-chested males are shouting and waving flags.
Google images thought I wanted to see this:
It knows me too well.
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