Yesterday we planned to sleep at Harald’s friend in Moabit in Berlin, but she was not home at the time, so we ended up sleeping in the car. Driving an ambulance is kind of awesome. There are so many buttons and switches to play with, even with all the medical equipment and emergency lights removed. And one of the seats in the back and be folded back to 120 degrees – a perfect sleeping place.
Harald put a bag between the two front seats and laid down to sleep there. I pulled out my sleeping bag and laid down to sleep on the seat in the back of the car. I had a good night’s sleep.

Today I woke up at five minutes to six. After a quick session of filming in Moabit, we aimed for Wroclaw, Poland. Exiting Berlin went smooth and easy – Harald seems to have become friends with Nora already, and no longer need my help for map reading and directions. When we drove on to the Autobahn, we noticed that there was very little traffic. Not a big surprise, being an early Sunday morning.
According to our friendly GPS, we were to arrive at Wroclaw at fifteen minutes past ten unless we had any stops for breakfast and refilling of gasoline. Harald also said he should buy a jerry can to have some spare gasoline stored in the car, just in case. A very light rain shower, quiet morning and everything seemed all right..

…until…. Just a couple of minutes after Harald mentioned the plans of buying a spare can of gasoline, things went wrong. Mentioning that seemed to jinx our smooth ride out of Germany today. Suddenly the engine stopped, and we were out of gasoline. The gasoline meter on the car is non-functional, but according to Harald’s measures, it should last a little further. But it did not. So we managed to pull safely over to the side of the Autobahn and put on the emergency lights.
Harald put the emergency marker behind the car, and we started checking the GPS. Nearest gas station is 8 kilometers away from here. That is some good 90 minutes of walking in a fast phase, and that’s only one way. Harald raised his thumb – the lovely international symbol for hitch hikers – and got a ride in just over two minutes. The drivers was working today, so he kindly refused to drive all the 8 kilometers to the gas station, but agreed to take him to the nearest exit from the Autobahn, so Harald could continue waving his thumb from there. I added the spot of the vehicle as a favorite on the GPS, and gave the GPS to Harald so he could navigate back.

Sitting in a vehicle on the Autobahn, with not much to see and not much to do, I started eating breakfast. Some lovely rye bread and cream cheese, and slightly luke warm milk. Sitting in a stranded vehicle on the Autobahn is a bit scary, I can feel the car shaking due to air pressure as every car passes by. But the car is parked on a leveled surface, visible from a long distance, so I do not expect more trouble yet.

Yesterday at Cafe-Cox, we spoke a bit about how the problems with the heating system was solved in such awesome manners yesterday, with the Serbian Romas. Harald said he thought we were just gonna cruise in to Poland with no more trouble, but mentioned Moore’s law – if it can go wrong, it will. I thought that more problems could be interesting since you never know how you will solve them before you find the solution. Though I would have wished we had something slightly less of a challenge than ending up with no gasoline on the Autobahn 8 kilometers away from the nearest gas station.

Still, I find this trip quite pleasant. Always keeping in mind the gently words written on the front cover of The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy: DON’T PANIC!