Sunday, July 29th, 2007

Sunday July 29th, 2007
9:15pm Poperidge, Belgium Time
1:16pm Saskatoon Time

We were rudly awoken this morning at 2pm by the parents. We were rushed out the door, because there was some parade going on in a town named Veurne about half an hour away. The people we are renting this house from (the owners of the travel store) took us. Their names are Albert and Gretta and they are so nice!! They're just constantly happy. The parade ended up being the story of the bible, and of Jesus' life. They put on this parade once every year. It was super long, but really good. We didnt understand any of the speaking because it was all in Flemish. Apparently this parade has gone on every year on this exact day for 500 YEARS!! Thats 5x longer than Canada has been a country!! And, the other thing we learned was that if a person is in the parade as a child, they have to be in the parade every year until they die, or else cant do it anymore. And each section of the bible is done by a different family. We got lots of pictures of the parade, especially the angry goats. There was a man sitting near us that would bark (or whatever a goat does) back to it, and the goat stopped and just stared at him. I laughed.

(haha, im hideous)





(dad videoing from the 2nd floor)







OH, and Albert had a huuuuge supply of Belgium chocolates, and he kept feeding us them! They were soooo yummy, but holy cow, even i had to say no at the end. Next door there were the biggest bottles of alcohol i've ever seen, AND there was a jeans advertisement that we loved. After the parade, we walked around the Verne. The architecture was amazing. Then we drove to Flanders Field! Shelby decided to recite the poem for everyone. There was a huge monument built to honor all the Flemish people who died in the war, but then a few years later, it was bombed down. Now, there is the ruins of that first monument, then they built another one behind it. On all 4 sides of the monument it said "NO MORE WAR" in 4 different languages. We then we drove out to a memorial site for all the Canadian soldiers who fought and lost their lives for this country. The Belgium people are really grateful for us. Gretta told us the story of D-Day and Diepe, and how it happened not too far from here.


We then drove a bit further to a trench that was preserved from WW1. Its so weird being in Canada, and learning about the war, and how horrible it was, but you dont really think anything of it. Its a huge reality check when you're standing in a trench that so many men died in. And there were even red poppies growing. It was amazing. Albert and Gretta then took us to Ypres (Lepers). The city is surrounded by water, with only a couple entrances to the city. They built the moat for protection.
Ypres has the second largest marketplace in Belgium. We spent so much time walking around and looking at all the buildings. All these cities are thousands and thousands of years old, and Canada is only 100. Crazy.




Anyways, in Ypres, there was a magnificent church, and we probably took 100 pictures of it, trying to capture how amazing it was. It was huge, gorgeous, and the architecture was insane. So intricate.

We then got icecream! There were so many choices, and we got yelled at in Flemish?? because we were suppost to order BEFORE we looked at the kinds of icecream. tsk tsk.





Albert was pointing out all the beautiful flower pots around the city, and was telling us how engineers made them all nice. I think dad got offended by this. So for the rest of the trip, we have to call them FLOWER engineers, not "engineers".
We went to this huge arc thinger that had thousands and thousands of names ingraved in the walls of soldiers who were never found and didn't get a proper buriel. EVERYDAY since 1928 they play The Last Post to honor the soldiers.

It so happened that today there was a big ceremony going on. There were choirs and bands and bagpipes. Not to mention news cameras, and some guy from a newspaper took our picture. I hope we make it into the newpaper because we all looked HIDEOUS. I love not showering. Anyways, so this ceremony was pretty neat. There was a man there who fought in WW1, and he got injured, and saw 3 people in his party die infront of him when some explosion went off. He was 109!! Seeing him almost made me cry. Seeing this stuff makes the war so real.