This is part 2 of my attempt to catch up on my blog before leaving for Barcelona tomorrow. Before I launch into our history group's trip to Belgium, I want to briefly mention a few of the events from last week. Pictures here: Week of Feb 7-13
Last Tuesday was our walking tour (component of our History of London class) of Westminster Abbey. I'll try to give a few details from this, since we aren't allowed to take pictures inside. My initial impression was that it was just another cathedral, which is not to take anything away from the beauty of the cathedrals over here, but I was not expecting the kind of history there is inside. The audio guide tour was very helpful, and I was amazed at the number of rulers, writers, politicians, and scientists were buried or entombed in the church somewhere. The beauty of the interior itself is of a simple Gothic variety, but the side wings and chapels contain some incredible sculpture and monuments. The Abbey is more than just a church or coronation chamber - it's almost a history book of the important people in British history. From the tomb of Edward the Confessor, who started work on the Abbey, to the tomb of Elizabeth I and onward, you can see a line of British monarchy. In the Poet's Corner, there is a mixture of poets/writers who are actually buried there (like Chaucer) and monuments or plaques to those who aren't. This area is essentially a "who's who" in British literary history. Musicians have a place here as well. Monuments elsewhere in the church commemorate politicians, leaders, generals, organizations (including one in the arcade around the cloisters to the SOE!), noted monks and abbots from when the Abbey was still a monastery, and scientists such as Newton and Darwin, both of whom are buried there.
Thursday night, we went to Benihana so as to introduce Alex to Japanese hibachi, but what we discovered was that the prices were insane and the portions and quality not quite as good as A1 back home in the Lehigh Valley (which in my experience remains the best Japanese restaurant I have eaten at -- A-town people know).
On to Belgium. Waking up at 5 on Friday morning was almost certainly the only bad thing about this trip, so it was good to get that out of the way first. The best part of the bus ride to Ypres was going through the Chunnel. I assumed that there was a road that ran alongside the tracks but what actually happens is cars and busses are loaded onto a carrier car on a train and the train carries you through to the other side. Definitely a very different experience, and the maneuver the driver pulled off to get us in there was pretty cool too.
Ypres (Ieper to the Flemish, "wipers" to British people who don't want to try) is a Medieval town which had to be mostly rebuilt after WWI, as the Allies "defended it to death." Much of the most brutal fighting in Belgium during WWI happened right in this area - Flanders fields, as John McCrae's famous poem immortalized them. We toured the "In Flanders Fields" museum located in Cloth Hall, the largest non-religious Gothic structure in Europe if I remember correctly. This museum featured a lot of wartime artifacts, but provided a ton of useful background knowledge regarding the actual impact of the war on this area. My knowledge of WWI is and has been somewhat vague and mostly from the American side of things. The history presented in the museum was essential for me understanding what I was to see later in the day.
At lunch, and at all future meals on the trip, our primary goals were to 1) try something new or a local specialty, 2) order one of the most expensive things on the menu. The reason for this is because Colgate was paying for all our meals, including however much beer we decided to order - and Belgian beer is the best. 3 of us had Flemish rabbit, which surprised me with how delicious it was. I've never had rabbit before, but everything about the preparation of this was great, from the sauce to how tender and flavorful it was. The Tongerlo blond beer I had is a little less sweet than Leffe and a little more complex in its flavoring, but otherwise somewhat similar.
At around 3 we began our 3 hour tour of battlefields and graveyards. The tour guide we had really knew her stuff and was able to convey it very clearly and in a manner that was never boring. As we drove from place to place, she pointed out features of the countryside we would not have noticed, for example why certain positions were more strategic than others. She indicated where the front lines of the Germans and the Allies were and showed points of furthest advance for both sides. We saw the facilities used as a kind of hospital due to their location somewhat back from the front line. She also took us through the graveyards and explained what the headstones told about each soldier killed. Most of the dead were our age - 20, 21, 22, 23. I think that might have been what hit home the most. You can hear figures about how many people died, but then you look at the endless rows of headstones in the endless cemeteries in the area, and you realize that if we had lived 100 years ago, this could have been us. People with names, families, futures - now just another headstone in a row of thousands just like it. There was one headstone in the first cemetery of a soldier who was only 15. The youngest in any of the cemeteries was 14. In the Second World War, they had to dig up many of the smaller German cemeteries and move the dead to the main German cemetery, and thus in a rather small square plot of land (see picture), there are 20,000 bodies in a mass grave, half of the bodies in the cemetery, but without a headstone. In the largest Allied cemetery, there are 30,000 bodies. There really isn't anything quite like this area in the US, even at Gettysburg. We in the States cannot fathom the idea that in Britain, only 30 villages did not lose a single soldier in WWI. And the featurelessness of the land really drives home how pointless it was, a mile here or there. And all the people dead due to pointless charges, trench foot, poor ammunition or supplies, insufficient medical staff, or technology which was built for an earlier style of warfare. The somber atmosphere of the afternoon could only be broken by the obnoxious group of middle schoolers who were going to all the same sites we were and who seemed to be completely missing the point. I can't imagine even my own middle school class showing quite as little respect for the dead as these kids were.
Back in the center of Ypres, we all went to dinner at a place called Vivaldi (the middle school kids showed up shortly after - still can't believe it!), which seemed to be imitating a trendy NYC restaurant. Again, the hunt for the most expensive dish on the menu! Unfortunately, they only have mussels in the summer (come on! this is a Belgian specialty!), so I got a Flemish beefstew which was also incredible, and a Belgian chocolate mousse for dessert. The beer I got was really good, but one of the students in our group managed to get 4 drinks during the course of dinner - no idea how, since we had some time constraints. Kudos to him though - we all seemed bent on exacting a little payback on Colgate for the absurd amounts we have to pay to go there.
The last event of the evening was Last Post at the Menin Gate - essentially a tribute every evening at 8 to the dead of WWI. I got separated from the group on the way back and wandered around looking for everyone until I luckily chanced upon Mike, Jessie, and Gillian and we went to one of the pubs in the square. But we missed out on the stories we heard from the rest of the group the next day - just ask Dr. B.
Colgate also came through in a big way on our hotel. Thank you rich Colgate parents who would complain if we ended up in a hostel! I still think we should have traveled to Bruges after the tour though, since Bruges is bigger and has a lot more to do. As it was, we only got to Bruges around 10:30 or 11 the next day and had to leave at 3. This was particularly sad because the place with 300 different beers opened at 4.
As a group, we all climbed the top of the bell tower in Bruges, all 366 stairs (remember, the Duomo in Florence has 470 or so, so this was not bad) in a spiral staircase which got narrower and steeper the farther we went up. As we had a couple people in our group who are more afraid of heights than I am, this was not the best experience for them. It was a big cloudy and foggy so we couldn't see as far as you usually can at the top of those towers, but Bruges is beautiful enough that it didn't matter that much. The way down (as always) was the worst part, and I'm not sure how they can expect to have two way traffic on these stairs, but we all got down safely.
Brendan and I wandered looking for somewhere to eat before settling on a French place with very French waiters. French attitude and everything. He had style though. The mussels were a bit on the expensive side, but with 15 euros toward lunch from Colgate, I didn't mind. As you can see in the photo, the pot of mussels was pretty huge and they were ridiculously good.
In the little remaining time, we searched for a good chocolatier. The place we settled on was called Pralinique and it had the best-looking array of chocolates and truffles. At Godiva in NYC, I got 3 or 4 truffles for $8.50 one time. Here, for a 375g box (approx. 20 pieces), I paid €6.90 (approx $10). I also picked up 3 large chocolate bars (dark, milk, and white) for a total of €9, so I could use my credit card there. Only Belgian chocolate in Belgium is really Belgian chocolate I learned, as the ingredients they use would not keep for international sale and inventory in American stores. Everyone needs to try the real stuff.
Sunday, back in London, was pretty low key except for dinner with Profs Dudden and Coyle and Prof Coyle's wife, which was a lot of fun. Monday was exhausting. Both English and History groups did our walking tour together since our tour was down the Thames to Greenwich. The river cruise enabled me to see London in a way I wouldn't have otherwise, and the guy with the amusing accent was very entertaining, but it was cold and windy and long. Once in Greenwich, we did a ton more walking, but we had a fantastic view of London. This point on the hill by the Royal Observatory has always been used as a defensive position because you can see miles in every direction. Even in WWII, it was used as an anti-air position against the German luftwaffe. The rest of the time we spent walking to see more WWII defensive positions and standing on the Prime Meridian, straddling the hemispheres. The play that night was Vernon God Little, a play which you'd really have to see to understand why it was good, so I won't even try to explain it. Pictures for Monday are here: Thames and Greenwich
I believe this makes me caught up now, so that's all until I'm back from Barcelona this weekend.
Random thoughts and observations:
-For all the French I've taken, there are still a few words here and there when I try to read a long passage that I'm not familiar with, or a few words/phrases used idiomatically, all of which completely render the overall meaning largely incomprehensible to me despite knowing 90-95% of the words.
-On a related note, every time I tried to speak French to someone, I'm not entirely sure they even knew I was speaking French. I have a long way to go...
-People bother me who go "aww" when you eat an animal that isn't beef, poultry, or pork. The implication is that these animals are ok to eat, but eating deer, lamb, or rabbit is somehow cruel. There really is no difference. Either get over it or become a vegetarian if it bothers you that badly.
-Driving through Belgium drove home why the area is called the "Low Countries." It is almost entirely flat, and as it had recently rained, the fields were muddy and there were puddles everywhere.
-Somehow in the rush to do things, I completely neglected to have a real Belgian waffle. Sadness.
-You know that Bruges is a beautiful city if it's still beautiful when it's cloudy and rainy out.
-There's just something interesting about watching a horse and carriage drive down a cobblestone road, closely followed by a bus.
-The Prime Meridian runs down the vertical length of the Earth, yet people will wait in line just to get their picture taken next to a landmark at one point along the Meridian. Yes, I was one of those people.
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