I Hopped on the Wrong Train and Ended Up in a Random City…
Yes you read that title correctly…happy Independent Travel!😊We’ll get to that part of the story shortly. Here’s the craziness from the core memory of my first independent travel trip:
My friend and I planned our first independent travel trip a few weeks before the actual dates to Vannes, a town in the South of Brittany. We purchased our train tickets and were all ready to go, not expecting the events that unfolded throughout the day. We got on our train at 9am from Rennes, everything going smoothly so far. We took the correct train and made it to Vannes an hour and a half later. We didn’t plan any itinerary, so we started off our time by window shopping in a few stores. In the first 30 minutes after stepping foot in Vannes, we have our first slight road block. In the Harry Potter store, my friend’s phone decided to magically turn off and not turn back on again…No it wasn’t a battery problem, just an iPhone glitch that happens from time to time. I’m pretty positive that the magic from the Wizarding World did this to my friend’s phone, what are the odds that this would happen when we weren’t in our home city?
Not to fret, we had a solution. We walked thirty minutes away from the small town of Vannes to the nearest mall where there was a phone repair store. Thankfully, the tech man fixed my friend’s phone in two minutes, free of charge! All jokes aside we were really grateful because it would have been such a hassle if she needed a new phone. Having no phone is always stressful enough, especially when we weren’t even close to home.
Mission accomplished and we moved past the first catch of the day. Everything went smoothly after our little turn of events. For lunch we had Korean kimbap from a street vendor then we walked around the little shops of Vannes. Vannes also has a port, and we admired all of the boats and the nice bay views. Our train was around 7pm so we had an early dinner of galettes before heading home.
Or so we thought we were heading home…
Just when we thought our trip was finished, the biggest phenomenon was thrown at us. We arrived at the train station 30 minutes before our train all ready to go, and even stood in front of our coach number. When it was close to the time our train was supposed to arrive, others were also crowed around the stop. The train came, so bien sûr, we hopped on. The train was supposed to arrive in Rennes at around 8:30pm, but it was around 8:25 and there was no alert from the conductor that we would be arriving soon, so we looked at our location on our phone. We were not close to Rennes whatsoever, but we were approaching Nantes! That’s when we asked the kind lady behind us what train we were on and she said the train to Nantes. WE WERE ON THE WRONG TRAIN…Nantes is another hour and a half away from Rennes. My first instinct: book a train from Nantes to Rennes. Since it was nearing 8:45pm there were no more trains to Rennes for the night. Second and only other option: uber back to Rennes. So that’s what we did😅. Was it exceptionally pricey? yes. Have I learned my lesson? yes🥰.
So here's what I think happened and how we got into this mess: Our train to Rennes was around 7:15pm, and so was the train to Nantes (but a few minutes earlier than the train to Rennes). When a group of people started to board the next train, we assumed it was to Rennes but it was actually to Nantes. We also did not know that on the front of the trains there is a tiny, minuscule screen which says what train you are on. Siince this was a train coming from a small train station, there was no scanner for our tickets before entering, and they didn’t even scan us inside the train (although that wouldn’t have helped in the end since we would have been on the wrong train anyway). So without thinking, without even knowing, we hopped on the wrong train because we assumed we knew what we were doing. The lesson I’ve learned from this experience: ALWAYS ASK QUESTIONS! Whether you are confident or confused, it doesn’t hurt to ask! What hurts is the aftermath if you didn’t ask👊🏽.
I wasn't scared or panicked when we were on a train to the wrong city, it was more funny and so unrealsitic in the moment. I really was “that American”. It felt like a scene that could only happen in a comedic drama, not in a foreign country you’ve been in for two months. I’ve definitely learned so much from this experience, and it is a core memory I will never forget from France. I got home safe in sound, all in one piece, around 10pm. I’m grateful that our train was originally planned for 7pm, because if this happened later we would have possibly had to find a hotel in Nantes which would be a lot more trouble we didn’t need for one night. So this was my first independent travel trip to Vannes…and Nantes! My big takeaway: asking never hurts!
