Battlefields Tour--Day 2

Day 1 was plenty long enough and we were up early to leave Paris at 7:30. The guys did a good job of picking hotels with high quality breakfasts--this meant that we could stock up for lunch.

French hotels have an interesting variety of yogourt flavours--my roommate was quite thrilled. Pink grapefruit for example. I wasn't sure the citrus should meet the dairy but it was really quite good. I was excited that they had cherry. My favourite cherry yogourt here has been discontinued :( But, I digress. You cannot have too much pain au chocolate--even at breakfast. Unfortunately, they don't travel well. But, we stocked up and loaded up and headed out of Paris.

The traffic wasn't too bad and our destination was about 3 hours away. It was a really nice drive up in the northeastern part of France and into Belgium. I did try to take some pictures through the window--bad idea. There were 5 of us in the van + Ben stuck in the little seat in the back. He bailed on us at the first rest stop though and went into another car where he proceeded to torment Lane for the next 2 weeks. We had 2 vans and a station wagon so we were a convoy of three.

Aside from a pee break/coffee break at a gas station along the highway, we drove straight through. Tim Hortons should look at France for expansion. There was no fresh coffee at the rest stop. There was just a row of machines that distributed coffee, tea and hot chocolate. There were those tall bar tables in the open space near the machine so you saw all these travellers leaning against the tables drinking these teeny tiny cups of coffee--a Timmy's large would knock the socks off of these folk. I don't think coffee and driving has permeated French culture yet. They don't have lids. And, there is a serious lack of cupholders in the average Renault Espace.

Late in the morning we pulled in to Ieper in Belgium. We stopped at a little bar/cafe thing just inside one of the gates in the old medieval wall. We had a chance to go to the bathroom and get something to drink before we did our first stand. A stand is where we stop and get a sense of the land around us and learn about the events that are relevent to our location.

I have to tell you about the bathrooms in Belgium and northern France. They are not quite like anything I have ever seen before. You go through the bar and follow the signs. They point you right through the bar and then out into the back yard. There, there are a couple of urinals and if we are really lucky, a toilet with a door on it. The sink is often outside too. There isn't really much separation for the sexes while you are going about your business. A little strange. I live in residence, I can pee at the same time as guys. But I would imagine that some more conservative members of North American society might have some difficulties.

Be that as it may. We went up on top of the wall--there is an old medieval wall that at one time surrounded Ieper. Parts of it made it through the war. We listened to Lee up on the wall. He talked about the reasons that the war started and why Canada chose to go and why the history of the First World War has been written the way that it has.

At this point, I found out that the little notebook that I had brought was in no way going to be enough. I don't listen and remember very well so I have to write everthing down. I needed to track down another, larger notebook. And a pen that worked. I hauled pens across the ocean that didn't work. Dumbass.

There was a little war cemetery there. We were to find out that there are little war cemeteries everywhere.

We were going to go to a little restaurant that seemed geared for Canadians but it was Sunday and it was closed. I think we went back into Ieper to have lunch that day. I can't quite remember.

We went to our next stand--in the middle of some poor farmer's field. We spent a lot of time in people's fields. I think the Belgian farmers are just used to weird Canadians disembarking and poking around. Ben is a shrapnel savant. He likes nothing more than seeing a freshly plowed Belgian field. Lee and Blake had been saying that Ben was brilliant at finding shrapnel. I figured that after 90 years, you would have to be pretty good at finding it. After all, how much could be left? Ben found shrapnel left right and centre. All he did was walk up and down the furrows of the field and low and behold, it was sitting right there, waiting to be picked up. He found a fuse cap and a bunch of other pieces. He also found a grenade. I think it was all he could do not to touch it--you never know if it's going to explode or not. I took a wander too and surprisingly, I found some shrapnel too. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it's still surfacing. When we had the farm, we were constantly harvesting rocks that hadn't been there the year before. But shrapnel after 90 years--I still can't believe it.

Towards the end of the afternoon, we ended up back in Ieper again. We went to the Flanders Fields Museum. It was really interesting--a lot of great information and exhibits on the First World War--not just Ypres and its battles. I took tons of pictures--we didn't have time and I needed to be able to come back later and look at the information. The museum is in the old Cloth Hall in the main square of town. It's the only place I really did any shopping. How sad is that??

Our hotel was just off the main square so we could walk back to our rooms. We went to the main square for dinner. There were tons of places to choose from and there were chocolate shops and bars as well. We went to a place that had enough room for a lot of people and had beer and something to eat. Kreik. They had Kreik. Cherry flavoured beer-pop. I think I could move to Belgium. An awesome town square and Kreik. Some people went over to the Menin Gate and watched the ceremony there. More on that tomorrow.

It was a very full day.