Hitching France Pt. 2 – Amiens

I arrived in Amiens in the middle of the afternoon and had some time to wander around before meeting my couchsurfing host back at the train station. The cathedral in the town is an incredible sight due to it’s immense size and intricate detail, especially for something of this magnitude to be in a smaller, lesser known town.

The downtown area is fairly nice and quaint and had a fair amount of people out and about even with some on/off showers. After a good walk I met up with Chris, my first couchsurfing host. I have to say that up until that point I hadn’t really thought the whole couchsurfing thing through… some nerves came on a bit as I was meeting a stranger I had contacted online to spend the evening with and crash in their home before departing the next day. I admit that I was pretty awkward for my first couchsurfing experience but unsurprisingly my host was welcoming and friendly. He was a little quick with correcting my time-broken French but it was helpful nonetheless. He took me to the home he grew up in, I awkwardly ate the croque-monsieur I got on our trip to the grocery store and then I called it a night pretty early and settled in the guest room. I slept surprisingly well and woke up early in the morning feeling refreshed. It was the big day. The day I’d finally give hitchhiking a go. We ate breakfast together and I can’t remember what I ate. I just remember all the fresh oranges Chris put through their juicer. It seemed like they had a gadget for everything in that small kitchen. We chatted over breakfast about various things until he asked me where I was heading that day. I uneasily said I was going to attempt to hitchhike to Lille which was two hours away or so. He looked really surprised and mentioned in passing he had met two guys hitching out of Amiens in the past. Then he exuberantly said “guess how long it took them… five hours!”

I have no idea why he seemed so excited when he made that statement but a part of me shrank inside. I thought the hitching culture was alive and well in this region? Five hours? Can I wait that long? Would it take that long? I’d be lying if I said I didn’t second guess myself at that moment but I felt in my gut that I had come too far to give up right then and there. The whole reason I went to Amiens was to hitch from there instead of Paris. I had already begun. There was no turning back.

After we finished breakfast we got ready to head out. He lived a few minutes out of town so he was going to drop me off downtown before going on with his day. I felt much more relaxed being around him at this point, I realized he was just a nice guy helping a fellow traveler out. That’s the whole spirit of couchsurfing. I suppose people don’t really know exactly why they host, maybe in the hopes of being hosted but other than that it’s oftentimes just because. We talked more on the way into the city, he told me about his past and how he had been a professional singer for nearly 10 years- it was how he learned English. He put on some good shows it looked like too. Now he was just a flight attendant enjoying brief stays in various places around the world, which in turn made him pretty well traveled. We got to a side road off of the main street in town and we said farewell. I thanked him a lot for the hospitality, apologized that I had been so awkward for part of the stay seeing as it was my first couchsurfing experience, he laughed, denied my awkwardness and said that he was happy to help. He was a really kind host.

Then it was time to gather my final items. I needed a piece of cardboard, a permanent marker and French phone service. Easy enough. I spotted a store right off the bat that had all sorts of office supplies/school gear and the like and quickly found a nice black marker. Simple. As I was walking up the street I really lucked out as it appeared to be trash day and everything that was ready to be collected was out in the center of the street. I could see the small truck a few blocks ahead coming to pick everything up. It was perfect timing as I conveniently ripped off the flaps of a box and slid them into my backpack. Within a few moments I was then seated in Orange in the waiting area to meet with a service rep. It was all too simple. In no time at all I had my SIM card working in my phone all thanks to a nice lady in Orange who wished me good luck on my travels. Then I was off. It was just about noon and I started to make my way out of town. Not without making a quick stop at a sandwich shop first and getting an solid sandwich and fries to-go – with samurai sauce.

Leading up to this point I had read as much as I could find about how to approach hitchhiking. I got the impression that picking a location was huge because you had to be easily seen by oncoming traffic and there had to be room for vehicles to easily pull over. Not to mention it helps to pick a spot where different roads converge in the direction you plan to travel which makes sense since more drivers increase the likelihood of getting picked up by one of them. I used the app maps.me, which allows you to download maps of particular countries, regions or areas to find your way offline, to spot an area which seemed to be the best option and I decided that I’d head that way and find a more definitive spot when I got within proximity.

I was walking north-ish out of Amiens and spotted a park on the way which seemed like a good place to stop and eat my sandwich before continuing on. I remember it being so good sitting there around a bit of nature and a creek, eating my sandwich, sipping on a coke and dipping my fries in the samurai sauce. Life is good…

And then it started to rain.. a lot. I slid a cover over my bag and went over to a nearby apartment building which had above ground parking underneath the building where I sat finishing my lunch and looking out over the pouring rain on the ground against a wall under the opportune shelter of this building. Part of me was a bit upset by the whole ordeal but another part of me really chuckled honestly. It was a test. And I was a vagabond, of course it would rain. As I waited I figured it was a good time to make my sign. I read that it helps to have a sign of where you were going (especially if you have a specific destination in mind) so that drivers may be more prone to stop. I boxed in the letters L-I-L-L-E, quite poorly I might add, but it looked good enough for me (and hopefully my chauffers). Not long after I finished, the rain slowed and eventually came to a stop and I walked out from under the shelter from the building. On my way once again.

I was refreshed I must say. Something about the rain calmed my nerves so the excitement returned. I was full, sign finished, my cool kept through the rain and my surroundings were glistening from the quick rinse. As I continued to walk out of the city I saw some of the canals I had seen on the map with tightly knit rows of homes all painted various colors. They were a nice gem hiding around a corner. And I went on.

I walked a few miles from where I had gotten my phone all the way up Avenue de la Defense Passive out near some car dealerships where I finally decided that it was time as I had just gotten out of the residential setting. I took my pack off and set it down against a speed limit sign about meter or so away, I removed my sign from inside and took my position on the side of the road. A place I would eventually come to cherish along my way. I put my thumb out, nervous as hell, then straightened it with a bit more confidence and smiled. Always smile as cars go by. You never really notice how miserable people can look while driving. So many blank expressions can dampen your spirits a bit. There wasn’t a ton of traffic that afternoon and I started to wonder how long it would take. The nerves came back a bit as I was standing out there and I remember thinking just for a moment that I hoped no one would stop. The fact I was asking to get picked up by random strangers was slightly unsettling. But I shook it off.