Indeed, the Trübenbach family from the Chemnitz area (Karl Marx Stadt at the time) invited me to stay with them. After my studies in Salzburg were done for the year, I hitchhiked my way through Hungary and Germany, with the goal of ending up in East Germany.
My plans were temporarily thwarted when I tried to hitchhike across the border. The guy who had picked me up got cold feet a mile from the border and let me out. I walked past a mile of cars trying to get a ride, then I got to the border on foot hoping to walk across the border. The border guards told me that I needed to take some sort of official transportation into the country, so I hitchhiked to the nearest train station.
By this time it’s getting late, I’ve been walking in the hot sun with a back pack all day, and I haven’t had anything to eat. Starving. The problem? I’m on a train in East Germany, and I’ve got no East German currency. I had a small bag of raisins which I nursed for the rest of the ride. When I arrived at my destination (a campground was the cheapest option while I waited for the Trübenbachs to pick me up the next morning) I was famished. I will not tell a lie–I traded some money on the black market so I could buy a soda and a bag of chips before drifting off to sleep.
One should never tell a lie.
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