My Very Exciting Week

As the title suggests, I had a very exciting week, this is why I haven’t gotten to posting about it until now. Sorry about that.

Well, my very exciting week started off in Belgium. For a school trip, yes, a school trip, my history class was invited on a four day trip to Belgium (and certain museums in Northern France) which was very good for me, because I could add Belgium to my (hopefully) ever growing list of visited countries. The whole thing started with a 5:30 wake up time followed by three hours on a bus. (okay I’m going to tell you all right now that I have very vague information about where we were and, before it happened, what exactly was going on. Just as a warning)  We were unloaded in a town called Guise in Northern France where Jean-Baptiste Andre Godin made stoves and housed families. I’m not going to enlighten you on anymore details about this, because I actually just spent five minutes trying to find his name. Like I said, I didn’t really have much of a clue to what was going on throughout the trip, I just took pictures.

We toured the grounds of the establishment,

Visited the bathhouse,

And viewed the living area,

I suppose I should give a quick run down, to clarify certain things. So this guy, Jean-Baptiste Andre Godin, made stoves (he actually like revolutionized stoves because his were cast iron so they distributed heat better than the old stoves everyone had. And actually they’re pretty sturdy because Agathe’s Grandma has a Godin stove that was installed in the house she lives in in like 1904), but he was also a pretty nice guy. He didn’t want to run his factory in a capitalistic way, so he instilled this “equivalent of wealth” thing so that all of his workers and their families would be well taken care of. He built the “Familistère” for everyone that made sure to have running water on all floors, lots of light in the apartments, clean air circulation, and hygienic bathhouses and laundry areas. So ya, I kind of learned that while I was there, but most of it I just read on the English translated Wikipedia page. Go internet!

Here is a cool piece of art that’s in the central square of the Familistère building.

Here’s a Godin wood fireplace

Here’s a stove and what I assume was some sort of toilet…

Our next stop was a museum commemorating the The Great War.

In this cute little town.

It had a room dedicated to music during and after the war period, and another with a wall that rumbled and felt like there was pounding rain and war on the other side. This was a scarf was pretty cool.

After those exhibits we were taken into the main bulk of the museum where it took you room by room through each stage of the war; Prelude, Progress and development of the war, and aftermath. It was really interesting… and everything was labeled in English, French, and German, so… good for me! Yay tourism! There were these great floor displays of the soldiers outfits from each country and a bunch of stuff they’d most likely have with them or own.

British uniforms

French uniforms

And pilots outfits

There was also this map

And look! Lord Kitchener for my Kitchener dwelers (he was Secretary State for War)

Guns.

And this cool carved cabinet

Joan of Arc!

After the museum, we continued driving until we got to Brussels. We didn’t do any sight seeing then, just had dinner and collapsed into bed.

Day two was the Port of Antwerp (which sounds weird now that I’ve heard Port d’Anvers so much)

We took a bus tour of the port (and a bit of the city) which was a relief.

It was so extremely windy and the waves were crazy ^

Here was a school for sailors.

And this little church was just in the middle of the highway.

Water

Nuclear Power Plant

Boxes

Boats

Those white orbs looked like the villain robots from The Incredibles.

A wind mill

These sheep were also in the middle of the highway.

A theatre

This was an elementary school.

This building was reconstructed after it was bombed in one of the World Wars and it looks like Clark Kent should work there.

The lunch that was provided was bogus so we bought Fries instead. I had a heart attack. When I’m dead and gone, bury me in Belgian Fries.

(This is where we at lunch, pretty Antwerp)

Also, our hotel (back in Brussels) was pretty close to Basalica of the Sacred Heart so we passed it a lot and I got a ton of pictures (I’m obsessed with taking pictures of churches, it was Notre Dame all over again)

I guess it’s time you actually know that I have real life friends here, so we took a picture in the bad light of the restaurant at dinner

Day three was Brussels, beginning with the Parlimentarium.

It wasn’t very exciting, I’m going to say that right off the bat. There was this giant wall of faces that obviously had something to do with the European Government.

 And this European ceiling

And this floor mural of Europe.

Where I am!

Gandalf: You asked me to find the fourteenth member of this company, and I have chosen-

Then we went to the Palace to eat lunch in the gardens

We walked down to the middle of Brussels which was super pretty.

Cold picture of the gang with Brussels’ Town Hall

Then we got Waffles!

(It was heaven. When I die, make it a coffin of waffles filled with fries… Why am I waiting until death? Someone take me back to Belgium)

So apparently there’s a big fuss over this tiny peeing baby

I! Saw! A! Dog!!!!

Day Four was back south. We went to a mine museum but only pretended to go in a mine (they lied to us, but I saw the emergency exit doors, there’s no outsmarting me you lying French people)

Me in a hat

Then we were in the bus for a while longer and got out and climbed a hill.

I don’t really know why, we just got out near this ski hill (I’m going to tell you guys because I’m not even ashamed anymore about how paranoid I am about everything. Okay so we stopped in the parking lot of the ski hill and I didn’t really know what was going on exactly and I was like hyperventilating because I thought we were going to have to go skiing and I really suck and I’m kind of afraid of skiing. I was like comforting myself like “no one’s wearing the right coat, even if these insane French people synthesized some way to ski with fake snow she’s not wearing proper shoes.” I was seriously terrified that I would have to ski. It was like one of those nightmares that you know isn’t happening but you can’t help being scared anyway.) and walked through a suburb and then got onto a trail and walked for fifteen minutes and climbed a hill.

It was pretty (there’s the ski hill)

When we’d gotten down, the teenagers formed a union against the teachers and we ended up going to McDonalds (or as they call it in France “Macdoe”).

It was so good…

And that was the end to Belgium. It was a pretty good trip, in my opinion although some of the other kids would beg to differ… They had to do a questionnaire through the whole thing that I made an effort to do but I think I got like five answers and that was because I focused my intellect on those (just kidding I looked at Agathe’s paper when she wasn’t looking). It was a little chilly (I use that word lightly because the bulk of my audience living in the winter hell that is Canada six months of the year), and crazy windy, but good.

Part two of my week and post is ~ Eastern France

We visited drove four hours east to visit Agathe’s Grandma for Easter weekend in Nancy, France (well, around Nancy). It was in the mountains so it was gorgeous and snowy (It actually reminded me a lot of Canada)

The house was a million years old and only certain parts of it were properly heated so you had to like run from one heated room to another. Agathe and I also both forgot our slippers so we were double socked at all times. On Sunday we went out into the garden and had an Easter egg hunt which was fun and one of the Kinder eggs fell into the bird house.

After that we went and climbed a mountain.

It was really cool because you could see the clear increase of snow around the further up you went.

At the top of the mountain we got lunch! 

We totally stuffed ourselves, working it off on the climb back down.

It was a pretty interesting week that, even now, feels like months ago.

Again, sorry for the late update. I guarantee you all at least two more updates before I come home (only three weeks left! I can’t believe it!). Love and Miss you all every day!