All Good Things Must Come to An End

Today was a bitter-sweet day for us.  On one hand, we got to spend another incredible day in London, England.  But, on the other hand, it was our final day.  Tomorrow we leave the hotel at 5:00 in the morning to catch our flight home.  Today was another full and exciting day.  We began at 9:00 leaving the hotel for a bus tour of the city.  We made a few stops for photos at the London Tower Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, and Buckingham Palace.  At Buckingham Palace, we had hoped to see the changing of the guard but unfortunately it happens every other day and that did not include today.  After Buckingham Palace, we strode through Green Park towards the Hard Rock Café for lunch.  Along the way, we passed several war memorials.  One in particular, just outside of Buckingham Palace, is a memorial for Canadians who fought in both world wars.  Also, nearby are the elaborate memorial gates known as the Canada Gates at the entrance to Green Park.  

After lunch, some of our students had time to venture into a small museum beneath the Hard Rock Café gift shop which holds many mementos of rock and roll history.  After that, it was a quick ride on the tube to the Tower of London where we learned the bloody history of the fortified castle.  Some of us were able to follow the Yeoman Warders (more commonly known as Beefeaters) on a very entertaining guided tour.  We finished up the day with a few hours of free time and shopping around Covent Gardens and Oxford Street.  Some of the group broke off and spent their time at Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station, and still others spent the time with their various family members living in Britain.  Overall, it was a fantastic end to a fantastic trip!  Thank you all so much for following along with us on our European adventure, it's been a blast.

"Never Was So Much Owed By So Many To So Few"

From the banks of the romantic river Seine to the bustling streets of London, our students have seen it all in just 48 short hours.  Yesterday was our busiest day yet. Arriving at the hotel past midnight we couldn't blog yesterday lest we pass out from exhaustion. Allow me to catch you up:

A bus tour took us around the streets of Paris and a couple of wonderful guides taught us all about the history of the city from Louis XIV to World War II to present day.  Free time in the afternoon allowed many of our students to venture into the Louvre and peruse the halls of the historic palace viewing billions of dollars of art from all over the world.  The rest of our time was left to explore the city and experience the extraordinary culture of France.  We finished our day with a visit to the iconic Tour Eiffel.  The steel structure, though originally only build to last twenty years, has been standing for 129 years and thankfully it did not collapse beneath us.  We saw the incredibly lit skyline of Paris from an equally well lit Eiffel Tower and it was a beautiful end to our time in Paris.

This morning, after a meager four or five hours of sleep, our students groggily filed out of the hotel at six in the morning to take a two hour Eurostar trip to London, England.  We dropped our luggage into a waiting van and immediately hopped on the tube to take us to Westminster.  Although we couldn't go into Westminster Abbey itself, we were able to take a ride on the London Eye and get an incredible view of the city.  Walking back towards Westminster to go to the Churchill Museum, we passed Big Ben for the second time and it was almost a surreal experience to see something so iconic in real life.  The Cabinet War Rooms were bunkers used by Winston Churchill during the second world war which have been preserved in their original state and are open to the public.  We finished off our day, nice and early, with a dinner of fish and chips at the Barrowboy and Banker Pub by the London Bridge.  And finally, we retired to our rooms for a much needed good nights sleep.  Tomorrow, with heavy hearts we embark upon our final day in London and in Europe and we hope that it is riddled with fond memories and fantastic photographs.

"Never was so much owed by so many to so few."

- Winston Churchill 

 

Paris!

After a two and a half hour bus drive from the coast to Paris we said goodbye to our fabulous bus drivers, Ron and Aldo.  We left our luggage in the lobby of the hotel situated in the shadow of the Chateau de Maison Lafitte.  Our tour guides, Barry and Kathie, capably led us on a short trip into the  centre of Paris on the RER train.  This was a new a experience for most of us and our tour guides extraordinaire helped to allay our apprehensions.  We took a stroll across the Seine to the Notre Dame Cathedral.  Kathie gave us a brief overview of the architecture of this magnificent structure, in particular, the flying buttresses.  We were then given an opportunity to explore the surrounding area and find a bite to eat for a late lunch.  Several of us found our way to the well known William Shakespeare Bookstore where some students were inspired to purchase classic English literature among other books.  Riding the Paris Metro with 64 people is a sight to behold.  Counting students becomes second nature rather quickly.  So far we have made a smooth transition getting on and off the subway.
We are tired so that's it.  We have a long day tomorrow with a short night, therefore we may not get around to blogging.  Bonne Nuit!

On the Beaches of Normandy

The sun came up, it was a new day dawning and we began it with honoring our fallen soldiers in song.  Over 2000 Canadian soldiers who fell on D-Day and the weeks following are buried at the Canadian war cemetery near Beny Sur Mer, France.  We then sang "In Christ Alone" and heard a D-Day devotional from Nicole Hamstra which was followed by the singing of "O Canada".  From there, we took a short bus ride to Juno Beach where we received a guided tour of the German observation and command bunkers.  After that we had an opportunity to peruse the Juno Beach Center Museum exhibits which finished with an evocative video about the soldiers who fought on the D-Day beaches.

We stopped for a group photo on the bluffs overlooking Gold Beach.  What an amazing view of the Mulberry Harbour!  Many of us then enjoyed a seafood lunch in the coastal town of Arromanches.  Although we have seen many cemeteries up to this point, Colleville was the first American cemetery we visited.  You may recognize the rows of white crosses from the opening scene of "Saving Private Ryan".  We had another opportunity for a group photo at a memorial erected on Omaha Beach.  Pointe du Hoc, a crater-filled field above the cliff between the Omaha and Utah beaches, wowed us with its historical significance and exceptional view.  We enjoyed running through the potentially dangerous craters and exploring the ruins of German bunkers.  Then it was back to Trouville for dinner and the final night at our hotel in Deauville.  Il était une journée exceptionelle! 

On the Western Front

Though it was a little frosty and cold, the sun was shining this morning as we boarded our buses and headed for Vimy Ridge.  Vimy was the site of the Canadian advance on the German front in April of 1917.  When we arrived we took an opportunity to present each student with a commemorative medallion marking this historic battle in the history of Canada.  These medallions were provided by EF Tours.  After the presentation of the medals, the students explored the grounds around the monument before we joined together in singing our national anthem.  We then were toured through the tunnels beneath the ridge as well as some preserved German and Canadian trenches on the property.  Some students commented that textbooks cannot truly prepare you for what you're actually seeing and that it was good to experience a bit of the reality of war.
Some of us enjoyed the scenery as we drove to Beaumont-Hamel while others caught up on a little bit of sleep.  Although there was much construction around the memorial, we were still able get a glimpse of the battlefield where Newfoundlanders fought and died during the first fight of the battle of the Somme in July 1916.  It was shocking to learn that 86% of the Newfoundlanders died during the attack.  After a baguette lunch, we went to the Lochnagar Crater and the German WWI cemetery near Fricourt.  A three hour bus ride to the coast was next on the agenda to take us to our dinner in Trouville and our hotel in Deauville.  During our bus rides we learned some marching songs from WWI from our wonderful tour leaders: Barry and Kathie.  One goes as follows:

"Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile.  Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, well boy that's the style.  What's the use of hurrying, it never was worthwhile.  So pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile."

A Sunday To Remember

Our first stop today was the Belgian town of Ypres (Ieper), a significant site on the Western front during WWI.  This town was leveled as a result of constant German bombing and then was rebuilt after the war to match its former architecture.  We all had the opportunity to visit the recently opened In Flanders Museum in the old Cloth Hall off the city square.  Several of us climbed the 231 steps up the belfry tower where we had a great view of the town and surrounding countryside.  After grabbing lunch and a lot of chocolate we made a stop at Essex Farm where Corporal John McCrae wrote his famous poem, "In Flanders Fields."  The Passchendaele Museum was the site of our next visit.  We were impressed by the reproduction of dugouts, tunnels, and trenches depicting the life of soldiers in WWI.  Following our visit we had time to relax in the sunshine and explore the grounds outside the museum.
Tyne Cot Cemetery is the largest British Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in the world.  This is where almost 12,000 soldiers are buried, 70% of whom are unidentified.  We wandered through the rows of gravestones, then gathered below the Cross of Sacrifice to spend some time together in a reflection done by Mr. Wassink on Christ's great love and sacrifice.  Following this, Kelsey Dykstra led in reading the poem "In Flanders Fields" and we closed by singing "Ten Thousand Reasons" and praying.  In our prayer we also asked the Lord to bless and comfort the family of Hilbert Kroondyk whose brother Harm passed away recently.  It was wonderful to have some of the other visitors to the cemetery join us in song and prayer.
A delicious beef stew supper awaited us back in Ypres at De Trumpet restaurant.  From there we went to the Menin Gate to witness the Last Post ceremony.  It has been held every evening at 8:00 pm since 1929.
It was a Sunday to remember.

A Day of Reflection

We woke up to a beautiful sunny day in Lelystad and after another wonderful breakfast made our way south to visit the Vught concentration camp.  We were split into two groups and taken through the camp by two local volunteer guides.  They painted a detailed and poignant picture of the atrocities that were carried out during the year and a half that the camp was in operation (1943-1944).  As a group we were personally connected to this story, as one of our students Matthew Van Dorp's great grand mother survived the camp with several of her children. We took a sobering walk through the woods to a memorial where 350 political prisoners were executed in the fall of 1944 due to the nervousness generated by the approaching Canadian army.  

From there we journeyed to the Canadian War cemetery at Bergen Op Zoom.  Over 1200 Canadians died in this area in Sept and Oct 1944 attempting to free the Scheldt Estuary from German control.  These Canadians are buried here.  We took time to walk up and down the rows of grave stones, reflecting on the gravestone inscriptions for the individual soldiers.  Before leaving we gathered together at the cemetery entrance to listen to Jordan Van Gurp read "Dulce Et Decorum Est."   This was followed by a Corrie Ten Boom meditation entitled "Two Kinds of Love" read by Nicole DeJong.  We finished with the singing of "Abide With Me."  

Then it was back on the buses for a drive through Belgium to our next hotel in Lille, France. The day ended with a chicken dinner at the hotel restaurant followed by raspberry tart for dessert.  We are now ready for some rest and look forward to our trip back into Belgium tomorrow to the city of Ieper (Ypres).  Stay tuned!  

By the way, due to technical deficiencies (history teacher using a computer), several photos yesterday did not show up on the blog.  The deficiencies have been resolved, so those photos should now be visible to you.