Adventures with Ametis!

      Ametis is the name of the bus system here in Amiens. I honestly have no idea how this name came about, but after today i do know a little bit about how the system works. So a quick overview, Ametis operates within Amiens and its surrounding suburbs. It has roughly 18 lines with just over 100 buses running those lines all day. It operates six days a week and a few lines operate till almost midnight. All bus stops are fairly well marked and all of them have up to date time schedules and maps, so it is a fairly user friendly. The price is not bad at all, it only costs 28 Euros a month for unlimited use.
     So now that we have the information out of the way we can get on to our experience. So to start of with we decided (well not so much decided but did this activity on a very rainy day) to do this adventure. We walked to the top of the hill outside our apartment complex where Bus number 9 stops by periodically. Jess was kind enough to model how the bus stops work!

We also have a pretty nice view from the bus stop right by the apartment! We only had to wait about ten minutes at the bus stop for our bus to arrive heading in the correct direction. We got on and scanned our passes and of we went to meet the second bus we needed to take to get to the southern commercial center of Amiens. 

So after we took the first bus we had to wait at a smaller buss top, which is one of the ones that is a little less marked. It was raining so we huddled together under the umbrella. Luckily we only had to wait about eight minutes for our second bus to make its appearance. 

Our second bus, the L4,dropped us off right across the street from the commercial center, but on the side it dropped us off on was this massive, vibrantly green field. It kind of reminded us of some of the fields back home. Just not this time of year since most of them are very, very brown. 

Our ride home was eventful as well. We had a local friend that Jessica knows from UCO offer to give us some plates and coffee cups. When we reached the stop we needed to get off at to meet her the bus driver just kept driving. Finally we got off at the next stop and walked a short distance back to the meeting point. once the exchange of the freebies had been accomplished we jumped back on the L4 and started heading towards home. Just a few minutes later our bus came to a stop because someone had parked their very small van to far away from the curb and the bus could not go around it. Luckily several people passing by and eating in a little diner called "Quick" came out in search of the driver. When it was obvious he was not going to be found quickly one of the passengers on the bus called the police so the car could be removed. The younger crowd however decided that this plan of action would take to long and began to all rock the car so they could eventually pick it up and move it over about a foot so the bus could pull around it. I wish we had gotten a few photos of the people as they moved the van, but it happened so quick that by the time we noticed what was going on it was over. 

    This weekend will be our first here in Amiens, and I think we have some plans made to go do some touristy things. We are wanting to go see the cathedral in person as well as some of the other local sites. Also there is a really nice looking market that sets up in town center every saturday and so we are going to go check it out as well! We will have pictures of these things in upcoming posts. So until then we hope everyone is enjoying the blog and if you have any suggestions please let us know in the comment section! Thanks everyone and safe travels!