Waffles, Chocolate and Beer (and some WWI stuff too)

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IES organized this trip to Ieper, Belgium with my history teacher who has spent a lot of time researching WWI and one particular part of our tour. Ieper (also called Ypres but the English couldn't pronounce it like the French-speakers) is very important to the British b/c so many British soldiers died there during WWI. It was the last town left when they were trying to defend Paris.. or something... anyway it's super important to the brits.

We left on Friday morning, drove in a bus down to Dover (saw the famous white cliffs, the castle and the WWII tower things that are still there).



Then they drove our bus onto a HUGE ferry that took us to France. This time the ferry only took about an hour and a half... They didn't even check our passports going into France but getting back into the UK they made us all get off the bus and go through and show our passports, answer quesitons, show visas etc. Yet another example of how the UK and France are different haha. Then we drove into Ieper. We had some free time to buy chocolate and waffles (MMMMMMMMM) then we went to the Flanders Field Museum.

This is a very interesting/well done museum. One of the most powerful displays was a dollhouse size display of what Belgium looked like during the war. It was basically a giant mudpit with the remains of dead tree trunks sticking out of the ground with barbed wire everywhere and trenches below. There were quotes on the wall about how it was basically hell on earth. Also on one of the walls was a quote about how this was considered to be the war to end all wars etc. and along side the quote was a count of how many wars/conflicts had been going on since (they crossed off the previous year's number and write the current year's higher total next to it). There was also a quote about how since the end of that war, there hasn't been a day where war/conflicts haven't gone on somewhere in the world. It was a very interactive museum.

There was something weird about Ieper to me though... All the buildings are in that medieval style of the step-looking things on top of the buildings and in the center of the square there's a giant clock tower called the cloth tower b/c thats where wool/cloth was sold during that time. But during WWI everything in Ieper was destroyed (and destroyed so much that the buildings were basically powder - nothing left). So after the war, they had to rebuild their town. But they rebuilt it EXACTLY. They did a replica of the medieval cloth tower. So everything in Ieper looks like it was super old, but really it was only about 100 years old. I never heard the reason for why they rebuilt their town exactly like it had been, but it seems like something that wouldn't be done in the US. Not that it's bad necesarly, but I get the impression that Europeans live in the past a lot more than the US does. If a city was totally destroyed in the US, I don't see anyone wanting to rebuild it exactly like it had been before. I mean I guess rebuilding the Cloth Tower isn't that big of deal, but they rebuilt some of hte houses to be exactly the same too. On our tour he showed us a house that had a statue of a bear at the top. It was b/c the guy that built it's nickname was Bear. That was centuries before WWI and afterwards they rebuilt the house with the statue and all. Weird?


I don't get that impression in London really though. There's so many new buildings and new architecture everywhere mixed right next to super old buildings too. You really get the impression that it was a giant of the past and is a giant of now too.

Anyway, after the Flanders Fields Museum we went to a group dinner, then went to the Menin Gate to hear "The Last Post" bugle call ceremony. The Menin Gate is a monument with a street going through itthat has 55,000 names of men that went missing in the area of Ieper during the war. (missing meaning they died and their remains were never found, were unreconizable when they died etc.)


Then our tour guide took us on a walking tour (in really disgusting cold and rainy weather) of some more things. The tour had a suprise ending. He took us to a bar called "De Twelve Apostles" or something like that and we all got a free belgian beer. Beer in belgium is very strong - they even had it rated next to it on a scale of 10 of how strong it was. I ordered a 9.5... it was good!


The next morning we got up and went to see some cemetaries/trenches/etc. We started at Essex Farms Dressing station which were used in the war and are very well preserved. Next to it was a cemetary. We also saw a German cemetary and trenches. We ended at Tyne Cot Cemetery where 11,908 graves are. They said there were so many graves here because the Germans had machine guns at the top of this hill facing Iepers so anyone trying to go towards them had no where to hide and were killed.





Then we went to Poperinge, Belgium. We saw Talbot House Museum which was a resting place for the soldiers. It was layed out like a house and there were debates, entertainment beds, food and a really pretty garden that they really liked b/c they didn't even get to see grass on the battle field. We had some free time for lunch and I ordered a croque madame! mmmm (ham and cheese sandwich with a fried egg on top) After this, our history teacher took us to the death cells and execution pole where the British army executed any deserters or soldiers who didn't obey the rules. He spent a lot of his life researching this and with another historian made a list of all the men who were executed here. Because of them the British government had to acknowledge what they did and how they didn't give some of them fair trials etc. This made it possible for these men's names to be on war memorials etc.

Then it was time to go home. We drove back to the port at Calais and got on the ferry. There were very big waves and it was very bad weather. The boat SHOOK almost constantly and it sounded like we were hitting other boats b/c of all the crash sounds. So after 1.5 hours we were all ready to get off, but the captain made an announcement that we would be on there for another hour b/c there were so many boats waiting to dock b/c of the weather. So we waited there tossing and turning for another hour when he came on the intercom and said we were going to have to wait ANOTHER hour. Not pretty.

It was an interesting trip and I went a lot of places I would have never chosen to go myself but was glad that I saw.

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