After a few days in Warsaw picking up Ilze, we headed for Ukraine. As would happen most days during these weeks of travelling together, we overslept and only started hitchhiking well into the afternoon.
A musician who'd barely slept and preferred to keep conversation to a minimum — the better to concentrate on the road — took us as far as Lublin. We barely had to wait, and he drove fast.
When I pointed out the various good spots to drop us off, he assured us he could take us to the far side of the ring road. When the moment came, though, he realised he was late for an exam — which is why we ended up getting out in the worst possible place, right in the middle of the city bypass.
We had to walk for a while, since trying to get a lift in those spots is a waste of time. When it started raining we took shelter in a restaurant, and just as I was beginning to write a help sign ("Out of here") a driver offered to take us 20 kilometres further on. He only spoke Russian, which made the journey a bit dull, but at least it got us off that wretched ring road.
From there we kept hitching. A local man, quite elderly and not particularly reassuring-looking, came over to explain how we should be hitchhiking — told us this wasn't a good spot, that it was actually forbidden there, that the middle of the roundabout was better... He was speaking Russian so Ilze had to bear the brunt of it. Fortunately he gave up after five minutes and went on his way — and the next car that came along picked us up.
This driver didn't speak English either, so to communicate he decided to call a friend who "supposedly spoke English." His broken English was incomprehensible — it was far easier to communicate through gestures. Eventually, with the help of maps on the iPhone, I managed to make myself understood.
And so we reached Zamość, where a dead ringer for Barney Stinson (I am not exaggerating — he was identical) invited us to come to his village near the Ukrainian border. Halfway there he decided to ring his wife to let her know he was bringing us along and would be back a bit later.
After a pleasant conversation about his life and adventures in Ireland, an explanation of how Polish CB radio transmitters work — drivers use open frequencies to warn each other where the police are — plus various other bits and pieces, we reached the queue of cars waiting to cross into Ukraine. We said our goodbyes and got ready to cross the Ukrainian border on foot.