Since I’ve been on the move for the last week, I figured it’d be a smart idea to journal everything as I went along rather than try to remember it all at once. Ya know, so it’s atleast fresh in the mind considering we were all over the place. When Eric and I went to Georgia for a few weeks back in 2007, I had a hell of a time trying to remember all the little, but hilarious, things that went on:
April 9th, 2010 – Ypres, Belgium
Dad and I started on our little adventure to enjoy a week over in England. This has been a trip I’ve been WAY excited to partake in considering I’ve usually been stuck in Belgium due to work, or traveling to The Netherlands or Germany. Sure, it sounds rather stupid to complain about going to those two places all the time since I’m sure there are people out there who have never been to either one of those countries, but, since I live just “down the road” from them, it loses it’s unique charm & experience, ya know?
Sadly, Eric wasn’t able to join us considering some things at work just weren’t lining up for him. Hopefully I’ll be able to bring him over to England sometime before we PCS within the next 2 years so he can experience SOME traveling. I feel bad for him since he’s barely been able to see any of Europe..and we’ve already been here for a year!
Anyway, Dad came to Europe about five years ago and visited a town called Ypres. In all honesty, I’ve never heard of it..but apparently it had A LOT of history from World War 1. Since it wasn’t too far from where our Ferry was (only an hour away), we stopped off there and managed to check the place out. There’s an incredible building there called “Cloth Hall”. When you look up pictures of this place online, they do NOT do this place justice. It’s absolutely breath taking! During WW1, this building was completely bombed out to the point you wouldn’t know it was as massive as it truly was. Within the building, they have a war museum dedicated to all the events that took place in the small town, uniforms from German soldiers, example from the Gas War, and tons and tons of information about 1914-1918. It was really interesting! Since I have SkyTV (it’s a British cable company), in November,they heavily advertise “Remembrence Day” which they use a red poppy as it’s symbol. One day alone, it’s said that 30,000 people died due to bombings and gas attacks in that particular town…that’s absolutely insane to me!
Perfect example as to how large some of the ammo was..
A picture of the after math...
Original wall from Cloth Hall after the bombings
Love letters to soldiers
We spent a great deal of time in the place and reading all the information (it was displayed in English, Dutch, French and German) in addition to taking TONS of pictures. While you’re walking around, they have some audio playing overhead with a narrator reading things from soldiers letters, documentations, and even war journals from Officers. I think the one that creeped me out the most was when I was checking out the gas mask display area and they had a scenario playing as if a gas bomb went off and there were gas masks in a display case. The case lit up with a misty green color and you could hear the voices choking and crackling as if someone was dying… brings the true nature out that someone DID die if they didn’t have their mask on properly.
Gas canisters
After we were finished with Cloth Hall, we went over to the Rememberance Memorial (The Menin Gate). This thing was overwhelming! It’s dedicated to the men who died in battle and were never found…VERY daunting when you realize the hundreds and thousands of names that are on the walls (54,896 names). When you think about it, there’s more names than there are bricks. Everywhere you look, there’s names..outside, inside, along the stairs…just everywhere. They have all the names listed under the country they fought with, their rank and what their job was (gunner, pilot, artillery). I took a ton of pictures, but they just don’t do it justice. This is something you DEFINITELY need to see in person to appreciate it’s history!
Mini sculpture of the entire building
Once we finished up there, we headed off to Ostende since that’s where our hotel was (Imperial Best Western) and checked in for the night. It was rather amusing when we finally got there cause when I originally booked the room, it was making the place sound VERY spacious and all that jazz. My mistake, lol. I forgot that we were in Europe. Correction.. I forgot that we were in Belgium. When we got to the room, the two double beds were smushed together to make one queen sized bed..and the bathroom really didn’t offer much privacy since the door was frosted glass. With some careful planning (and distraction), when morning time came.. we managed to take our “showers” without mentally scarring one another.
See? Very private.
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