Today will actually go down as the first day I actually completely failed at my attempt to achieve an objective. My intentions were to go to Albert to see the Somme Battlefields 1916 Trench Museum. I made my way over the train station and could see that it was likely that the trip to Albert would be on a bus which was fine. I went in and bought the ticket and attempted to find the bus depot portion of the station at Amiens. However I was completely thwarted and when I thought I found it just after the bus was supposed to leave I saw a bus pulling away and assumed I had missed it. I went back upstairs (there was a lot of stairs and twists and turns involved in all of this) and the guy told me another was due to leave very soon. I raced back and indeed there was a bus where I had been before and I got on it after showing my ticket because the driver nodded for me.
It turns out this bus was not going to Albert but was set to go to the middle of nowhere to a location called TGV Haute Picardie. I am not sure what the purpose of this station is but it was really in the middle of nowhere. I hadn’t realized it wasn’t the Albert stop at first and did as much walking as I could to discover that I really was not where I was supposed to be. I walked all the way back and bought I ticket back to Amiens. The wait for this wasn’t terribly long at least and the ride back was fairly quick. I arrived back a little bit before noon at this point. Having not had my ticket actually checked off for Albert I decided I would have another go at it. I wandered around a bit more and eventually found what I think is the actual bus station. There was supposed to be a bus leaving for Albert by 12:20 or so and I figured I could still see the museum with most of the day still around. It isn’t getting dark before 8:30 or so. So I sat and waited for the bus to arrive and then after a few minutes it did. But then when I tried to get on board showing the pass the man driving the bus said something really fast 3 times and basically pushed me away from the bus. The platform even said Albert on it. He didn’t look at the ticket at all. He did let some other people on. He was directing me to go to another location but I cannot for the life of me say where that would have been. That’s pretty much when I gave up on the trip to Albert because the sign boards had no other trips showing Albert at all on them. I was really annoyed and disappointed at this point because that particular museum was something I really wanted to see. Unfortunately it was not to be I guess. I do think I mumbled something about hating the French at this point.
After I got out of the train station I decided to head back to the house of Jules Verne which is a museum as well. I figured I would at least do that to get something in. Of course when I got there at about 1:00 the place was closed until 2:00. So I walked back into town and then got lunch which I had been planning on skipping at a café called Le Queen’s. I had a 1664 beer which was very Budweisery and a burger in roll with all sorts of stuff on it. I ended up eating the thing like a local though it turned out to be very messy to do so with knife and fork. Nonetheless I survived the experience and the burger was even good. Eating there and walking back to the house of Jules Verne wasted enough time for the place to be open and I took the tour with an English language guidebook much as a bunch of the tours I had done in Sweden happened. There was an actual French guided tour that started just the moment before I got there so I had to delay a bit until I found a place to get around them then I was able to move away from them and do things at my pace rather than theirs. I had tried to listen to what the guide was saying but she was speaking rather fast and I could only pick out a word here or there that really had no context at all. It was better that I moved away from them.
When I was done with the tour I headed back to the hotel and rechecked my email where I got the alert that Bank of America had stopped my account due to suspicious activity. I had to call them and they of course didn’t provide the international free number just their in US 800 number. I called them and sorted out that I was in France. I asked why previous trips hadn’t set it off but this one did (and several days in). She suggested it may have been the internet connection I paid for online. I guess that does make sense. In any event they have unstopped my account which is nice of them and I can again continue to use it. I did have the credit card as well but they probably would have stopped that after one purchase also for all I know. The Bank of America International no charge number is 001-602-597-2395 for the record. Or so the girl told me anyway. Today will probably be the day that has the fewest number of pictures I’ve ever taken in travel (no pictures allowed in the house of Jules Verne) and the first almost complete failure day I have had in solo travel.
I think filled with the defeat when I got back to my room after the Jules Verne house I just up and gave up and finished reading the book I had brought along with me. It was about 600 pages long and I had about 150 or so to go. I technically was going to finish it on the plane rides back but decided to just kill what I could of the night with it instead. I decided I was even still full enough from my somewhat late lunch that I didn’t feel like eating dinner so I just packed up my stuff as best I could in preparation for going to Compiegne tomorrow. I hoping it won’t be so bad. It will be a train and not a bus and there is even a line that goes directly there so far as I could see on the train station board. The bigger adventure will be getting from Compiegne to Caen. That will be a fairly long ride and I will have to change trains I am sure. If there is a greatest chance of failure on getting to a place I have reserved a room that is it. That said I am only minorly disheartened by today’s events and will move on with the bad experience behind me. It had to happen someday. And heck I did get to go to the house of Jules Verne anyway.
The paltry sampling (3) of pictures from today is posted here.
With Compiegne I may again fall out of internet range. I certainly hope not. I definitely will have that issue when I return to Paris.
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