REFRESH... Belgium - Ypres 2013
So on December the 6th 2013, I had to return to the school layby at 4AM in the morning ready to go to Belgium, Ypres, the school layby is basically like a car park and thats where usually all our coaches for the school trips are parked ready for us to board the bus.The teachers told us all to arrive at the school layby at 3:30AM because they said that our bus was due at 3:30AM but obviously not, the time the bus arrive was at 4AM and some of us arrived at 3:00AM so we waited in our cars for 1 hour exactly. I left at 3:00AM because I wasn't able to sleep that night.
We had breakfast at Maidstone Services, which basically I think is in the middle of no where… We had a nice hot chocolate from Costa. I wanted to get a McDonalds Happy Meal at the time but sadly we wasn’t able too because they were only serving McDonalds breakfast, but I had brought food with me on the bus, so I had that for breakfast. Tom had a bacon sandwich in the services with loads of tomato ketchup so he was stuffed before we had to go on our journey to Belgium again.
We was basically like half an hour away from the Eurotunnel from Maidstone services, so it basically wasn’t that bad. When we got to the Eurotunnel we were able to get off the coach. We was in the EuroTunnel for like half an hour anyway, because we had to wait for every car and coach to board on the train before we could go. There was a coach behind us and their coach was called the ‘Essex Boys’ so I think they were from Essex. We asked one of them to help us take a picture for us too. LOL.
During this trip in Ypres, Belgium, I learnt a lot more about World War 1, it was an amazing experience and I would definitely visit Ypres again because it was amazing. We went in December time because we was able to see the Christmas Truce performance which was between the British Soldiers and German Soldiers - well it was basically Christmas Eve and the British and German Soldiers did a one day gathering and told each other soldiers about there life, played cards and food also drank beer, they also exchanged presents, but when the leader found out about this they were not allowed to EVER do that again. So the next day which was Christmas they had to fight each other again. So that was a great experience.
The trenches we visited with 'Bayernwald, Duitse Oorlogssite Iper (Ypres)'
When we arrived there we some reporters from CBBC Newround reporting. They were reporting about the Christmas Truce I think because we saw them twice. Once during the evening and once during the night we went to a ceremony downtown.
While we was at the trenches we had Vegetable Stew and had Belgian sausages, which I loved because I love sausages hahaha, especially Frankfurthers lmao, the veggie I had in my stew I wasn’t really keen on because it was all dried and yucky, but I enjoyed my stew until I spilled a little bit of stew onto my gloves, which I still had to wear during the day because it was really cold in Belgium! This stew is known as Manochonie Stew (I'm not too sure whether I have spelled it right either).
We visited a lot of cemeteries where all the soldiers have been buried. It was a great, great, GREAT experience! I just wish there was time machine so we could go back to all to memories I had in Belgium:( But sadly time machines are never gonna be invented.
When we arrived at Belgium we visited our first cemetery then we went to the trenches - everyone was so nice there. After we visited the trenches we went to another cemetery and we went back to the trenches to watch the Christmas Truce, after that we went to buy our lovely Belgian Chocolates haha, I spent like £100 on chocolate in Belgian money - lol. A lot of people spent a lot on the chocolate, but it was worth it, because the chocolate was delicious! After we bought our chocolate we went to the restaurant we had food too. We had Belgian Chicken, chips and a side salad. Romany one of my friends thought it was frog. I was like WHAT?! I’m not eatting frogs am I? I literally refused to eat it, then Jessica one of my other friends asked the waiter if it was frog and he told us it was fresh Belgian Chicken. So then I was cool and carried on eatting my ‘fresh Belgian Chicken’. We had this bottle of clear water that looked fizzy from the outside which me and Cerys thought it was vodka and we was crazy enough to take a picture with a glass bottle of water thinking it was Vodka lol. We also had coke to drink too and ketchup. Me and Tom kept asking for more, because we both love ketchup! There was like 2 large tubs of ketchup on one table for us all but me and Tom asked for another three. Hahahaha! While we was at the restaurant we saw these 2 boys, so me and Cerys ended up flirting with them, because we know they would only see us once in their lifetime haha so we waving, blowing kisses at them and told them to ring us hahaha. After we told them to ring us te boys looked like they were going to come into the restaurant and actually ask for our numbers so we thought it had gone to far already hahaha. But it was really funny.
After we had food that day we went to a service. It was amazing, because I randomly got this picture of a hot boy on my camera. So it was totally worth it.
After we went to that service we went to Peace Village which was the hostel we was going to stay in. The Hostel was great! It was really pretty in there, they had a pool table, a lot of board games and a bar for us to enjoy until 10PM which was when everything closed and we had to be asleep.
The next day we went to Hill 60 and a lot of other attractions we also visited more cemeteries. Me and my friends learnt a lot on this trip. We left Belgium at 4PM UK time because it was one hour faster in Belgium. When we arrived at the Eurotunnel we went to this Eurotunnel shopping mall and got food and some other stuff if we wanted to get anything, I had a burger king and I spent £4 for a Kids Meal in Belgium, but it was still worth it though, as it did fill me up. After we had our food we went back to the coach and started our journey home.
On our journey home we stopped at another service, which had KFC, McDonalds, Starbucks, Costa, WH Smith, arcades and toilets. The Girls, Tom and I had a hot chocolate from Starbucks. They couldn’t spell Romany’s or Cerys’ name and Cerys was really pissed off hahha, I was gonna queue up in KFC for Popcorn Chicken but it was a very long queue so I gave up. In the arcade there was these grabber machines with Sulley, Mike and Minions in it - I spent like £8 on that to get either a Mike or a Minion. But nah, I failed every single time! :( Romany spent £6 there too and Cerys spent a lot of money on that grabber machine but I don’t remember how much, Megan spent like £3 on it too anyways.
We soon had to go back to the coach so we spent like nearly all our money on the grabber machine. Corey had a KFC and he weren’t allowed to take it back onto the coach, so he was giving out free popcorn chicken to everyone and when we was nearly home Cerys tipped Hot Chocolate on the coach hahaha, but we did try to clean it up before anyone noticed!:L
Anyway, I enjoyed Belgium really much and if you go there I think you would have too, but I recommend going at Christmas because there was a lot of Christmas stalls when we went and when we went to the town to buy our chocolate on the first day in Belgium, there was like a Belgian Winter Wonderland with little stalls, carousel and a ice rink with loud Belgian music in the background!
