The 20km - Linz - #33HT

A little bit before our driver drop us, he just received a message and he told us that he needed to go to Linz in hour after doing what he needed to do in this village. We were really close from our destination and we could try to hitchhike again and we just had an agreement that he would be there in the same spot one hour later and if we would still be there, he would drive us to Linz. When I said we, I couldn't include myself a lot, because again the language spoken was German between the girls and him. But well, I'm in this kind of easygoing mood and most of the things are good for me. When you're traveling in this modality, you start to become easy going over time. Thanks for the trips and life experiences that made me a non-picky person.

Transportation would be a big problem at all. We could go to the highway and try to make our 20km of distance or just chill out in the gas station waiting for our driver. In fact the girls didn't want to go with him in the beginning because he was flirting with them, but they agreed to go anyway. I could be the "protector" of them. A guy driving us with another guy in a group of girls would think twice before to try something with them.

We still had a bigger problem. For this day we didn't any find accommodation. As everywhere we've tried Couchsurfing for a group of 3 people, but nobody showed us the green flag. Our Airbnb options were really limited. Once we left from Czech Republic and arrived in Austria, the rentals prices there were really more expensive Linz, like twice or 3 times the price that we used to see in the Czech Land.

I also didn't have data since I left from Germany. It made my trip plans being kind of weaker. I was catching the Internet in some public hotspots and gladly this gas station had one. Started then to search for Airbnb or Couchsurfing hosts around and doing everything really quickly once we had just few minutes before our drive arrive in the gas station. That's the moment that I was sending copy and paste Couchsurfing requests. I don't really like it, to send or receive, but there were some moments that I didn't have any other option. We needed to know in which direction we were going before our drive arriving.

The first good opportunity was a house to rent by Airbnb with a good price that was 5km close from the place that we were, it would be in the middle of nowhere, but we at least could be there by feet, sleep well and move in the day after.  

I sent the request, but the owner didn't accepted automatically and we needed to wait for the confirmation. I had my phone in my pocket and when it vibrated I had the feeling that it was the confirmation message. At the ending it wasn't. It was actually something so much better. A Couchsurfing notification in the screen of my phone was saying: "Phillip accepted your request to stay". Damn it! It's the moments that you make sure that miracles can happen. I was already spending more money than I expected renting place to stay in the last days. Renting a house in Austria would definitely break my budget. Phillip just saved us, offering his living room for the three of us.

I quickly canceled the previous Airbnb request. Once the owner never answered my message, it was all right.

Happily our driver just arrived with an Austrian punctuality. Then we quickly arrived in Linz and the girls during these minutes needed to listen many compliments, invitation for dinner and drinks and other attempts of seduction. Of course it didn't work.

Being nice or not, he just dropped us close from the city center of Linz. We finally made 20km that we could easily have ended up sleeping in a park in the middle of nowhere.