Hitching France Pt. 11 – Rennes

I still had a few hours before I would be meeting up with my couchsurfing host, so as such, I made my way wandering around town for some time before finding a McDonald’s to charge up and tune in. It was funny how much time I was spending inside McDonald’s while in France. They just turned out to be the perfect place for my need of both power and wifi. I never really ate much, just some fries or occasionally an ice cream. I was saving my appetite for more novel eateries but I digress. My couchsurfing contact left a message for me saying that they would be back from the gym at 8 PM and to come through then. It was around 6:30 PM when I saw the message and there was a decent walk to get to their home. I took my time to recharge, both myself and my phone, before setting out for the crosstown trek. I reached the area with some time to spare so I grabbed a snack and took a seat on the sidewalk against a fence along a busy road for the last ten minutes or so before walking up the last few blocks to meet my hosts. They were three graduate students in Rennes studying history and political science. They seemed super cool as well. When I got in and set my pack down they said they were thinking about going out in to town for a couple beers which sounded like fun so within a few minutes I was back out on the street with the three of them and we made our way to the metro station to head in to the city center.

We wound our way through empty streets where cars couldn’t even go through until we came across a large group of people on the corner of some side street next to a huge cathedral. There were a bunch of tables set up on the wide sidewalk, overflowing into the street and two guys were setting up a DJ booth on the other side of the small street outside of another bar facing the brewery we walked in to. It was packed. Especially considering the fact that it was a Wednesday night. The atmosphere was pretty cool too as the décor featured a lot of rustic wooden barrels in various places either in use or on the ceiling. Other than that it had a cellar sort of ambiance the way the walls were designed with narrow passage ways linking the few different rooms which people occupied. Off of the main area there was even a live band playing inside one of the small rooms but we didn’t check them out and soon regrouped outside with another one of my hosts who didn’t come in where we found some more of their friends. It was a lively night for sure and the beer was pretty good. My French is conversational at best but I usually get lost when discussions are held between a few people. They tend to be fast paced and hard to follow. I still love the language though and it is immensely fun to try and decipher what you hear for the moment every now and then when I can find something to input into the conversation. The night went on with a hop to another bar along the “rue du soif” (road of thirst) and we ended the evening by hanging out in a small park with beers from a corner store. It was a pretty fun, mellow night out in Rennes. When we all got back to the house there was a huge political debate that went on over some pasta one of the flatmates made. I barely could follow their conversation but it was super entertaining to here four French political science grad students go back and forth in heated discussion about politics, government and society. I was certainly content as an observer. But, all good things must come to an end, and around 1 or 2 am everyone was feeling the weight of fatigue so we turned in for the night.

In the morning all but one of the flatmates were gone to class when I woke up around 9am and since I had some distance I wanted to cover I got all my things together, showered, picked up their living room a bit and set off. I remember feeling quite energized that morning, maybe from the night before, but I certainly felt ready for the day ahead. I chose to walk back in to town to save on the metro and take another route to see a bit more of the city than I had already. I love the atmosphere of French cities. As I approached the town center I noticed the air begin to change a bit and as I turned up another street I saw that I was approaching a police barricade with a bunch of officers around, only letting people through a small doorway they had set up with clear, I assume, bulletproof glass, subjecting passerby’s to some passes from a metal detector wand before letting them on their way. I reached the door and an officer told me to open up my pack for them. I smiled, as they saw it was a huge inconvenience to unclip the straps from my body, set the heavy pack down, unhook some other straps to open up the bag and backpack which was strapped to it. Not to mention they could hardly look into my large bag anyway because it was jam packed with clothes. They asked anyway if it just had clothes, since at this point they realized I was just a traveler and not from France. I opened my other bag which held all of my cardboard signs and one of the officers pulled the sign with “Rennes” written on it. His face lit up and he asked “this is for hitchhiking?!” (in French of course). I smiled and said yes and all of the officers started laughing as they thought it was pretty interesting and funny that this American was just hitching around their country. I asked them what all the security was for and they said that the students in the city were protesting some new measures enacted by the government which could make it harder for them to find work. It wasn’t until I was heading a few blocks down along the river that I was able to see them through some buildings a few blocks away along the streets surrounding both sides the of river. There was a mass of people with signs, megaphones, flags and whatever else protestors usually have. There must have been a few thousand people circling the river making their voices heard. It was quite a thing to see and quite the thing to stumble upon on my way out of town. It would be the first of two manifestations I would see on my journey before flying home.

Anyway, eventually I found a bakery and bought a pain au chocolat and chausson aux pommes. I then continued on to Parc du Thabor where I found a bench to enjoy my breakfast. The gardens were stunningly beautiful with a plethora of plants and flowers, some even with name tags to occupy the mind. It wasn’t until I was leaving when I became aware of how big the gardens were as well with an open grass forum in the center complete with intricately trimmed hedges and walkways. It was a splendid find for a morning stroll and quite the place to eat breakfast. I still had a ways to go to the roadway as it was a long walk south so I set off soon after my stroll around the park came to an end. One thing I started doing early on was making my sign somewhere along the side of the road and as I was making my sign on a bench about a half mile or so away from the roundabout to the auto-route I wanted to be on, a man walking by glanced over and abruptly stopped. I looked up to see an older gentlemen, late forties to mid fifties, standing there smiling at me. He asked if it was for hitchhiking and I said yes which sparked a discussion about life and travel right there on the side of the road. He was a traveler as well, recently coming back from a trip to.. dun dada, duh- Budapest. He had done some hitching too when he was younger and looked back fondly on those days of adventure. It always melts my mind thinking about the people I encountered in a serendipitous way like that. As I was hitchhiking more and more it felt like I was tapping in to a hidden network of interesting people.

The road I was walking along turned into a complex and busy series of roundabouts and interlocking roadways before the roundabout I needed to get to which lead to the auto-route I had my eyes on to head south. Just to my right however there was a shopping center so I walked through the parking lot and then up a small hill through some bushes and brush to get to the roundabout. I lucked out as there was a bit of sidewalk there and an area with enough space to pull over on the side of the road so, naturally, I stuck my thumb up and waited.