A fun weekend on the bus from hell.
On Friday morning, 90 of our group climbed onto two coaches and drove 2 hours to Dover, where we entered the Chunnel i.e. the train that runs under the English Channel. In order to board this thing, our bus had to drive onto a train car. The whole journey across only took 30 minutes. We arrived in Northern France and made our way to several World War I battlegrounds. It was really amazing to see a land that still bore so many scars from battle. The land was covered in huge gaping craters and electric fences to keep tourists from wandering into fields where there were still explosives that have never been detonated. Alarmingly, many many sheep were roaming these active fields... We saw lots of graves of the many soldiers that died, and we were also lead through tunnels that the Canadians and Brits used to go to the Front Line.
We made it to our hotel late that night, and explored the city of Arras. That was really my first time to be in a country that did not speak English (though I sometimes feel that Oxford is like that with the millions of 14 year old Italians running around). The city was very beautiful, though apparently there are no rules about picking up dog droppings. Lots of beautiful buildings. We spent the next day looking at WWI memorials, particularly ones for the missing. They had this huge building with over 70,000 names inscribed on it. We visited a museum, and then we drove to Yepers, Belgium.
Belgium was incredibly beautiful. Exactly how I imagined a European city to be, all cobblestone and brick roads, huge, beautiful buildings and lots of little cafes. I tried authentic Belgium beer, Belgium waffles, and best of all Belgian Chocolate. We spent most of our time in Belgium seeing more war memorials and battle fields. Unfortunately, that day it started raining and the temperature dropped significantly. After exploring the Flanders Field Museum, we went to a cafe and had the best hot chocolate I have ever had in my life. It warmed us up and made the drive home much better.
The bus travel was insane, as was our bus driver. This guy just tried way too hard to hang out with us and be cool. His first big mistake was playing really bad rap music as loud as he could crank it on the bus while everyone was trying to sleep. He ignored pleas to turn it off until a professor spoke up. He drove like a maniac, and did not know what a gradual stop was... he just slammed on his breaks when it came time, causing us all to fly fowards. He took the roundabouts like a crazy man too, and suffice it to say that I was taking lots of Dramamine. The night we were in Belgium, students saw him in a club at 3am pounding shots, and the next morning no one could find him when it was time to leave. He finally turned up an hour late. He told all of the students they could get off the bus to use the restrooms twice, both times almost caused us to miss our train across the Chunnel. He was missing half his teeth, but continued to grin and talk to the girls. This man was crazy, I really thought there would be mutiny for a while.
Ah, good travel times.
This one is actually from last Wednesday when we visited the reconstructed Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London
The renovated WWI trenches in Northern France
Graves of WWI Soldiers
Arras, France, where the hotel was.
The Sheep wandering the explosive laden battle fields.
Me in Belgium.
Some Belgium Cafes.
We made it to our hotel late that night, and explored the city of Arras. That was really my first time to be in a country that did not speak English (though I sometimes feel that Oxford is like that with the millions of 14 year old Italians running around). The city was very beautiful, though apparently there are no rules about picking up dog droppings. Lots of beautiful buildings. We spent the next day looking at WWI memorials, particularly ones for the missing. They had this huge building with over 70,000 names inscribed on it. We visited a museum, and then we drove to Yepers, Belgium.
Belgium was incredibly beautiful. Exactly how I imagined a European city to be, all cobblestone and brick roads, huge, beautiful buildings and lots of little cafes. I tried authentic Belgium beer, Belgium waffles, and best of all Belgian Chocolate. We spent most of our time in Belgium seeing more war memorials and battle fields. Unfortunately, that day it started raining and the temperature dropped significantly. After exploring the Flanders Field Museum, we went to a cafe and had the best hot chocolate I have ever had in my life. It warmed us up and made the drive home much better.
The bus travel was insane, as was our bus driver. This guy just tried way too hard to hang out with us and be cool. His first big mistake was playing really bad rap music as loud as he could crank it on the bus while everyone was trying to sleep. He ignored pleas to turn it off until a professor spoke up. He drove like a maniac, and did not know what a gradual stop was... he just slammed on his breaks when it came time, causing us all to fly fowards. He took the roundabouts like a crazy man too, and suffice it to say that I was taking lots of Dramamine. The night we were in Belgium, students saw him in a club at 3am pounding shots, and the next morning no one could find him when it was time to leave. He finally turned up an hour late. He told all of the students they could get off the bus to use the restrooms twice, both times almost caused us to miss our train across the Chunnel. He was missing half his teeth, but continued to grin and talk to the girls. This man was crazy, I really thought there would be mutiny for a while.
Ah, good travel times.
This one is actually from last Wednesday when we visited the reconstructed Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London
The renovated WWI trenches in Northern France
Graves of WWI Soldiers
Arras, France, where the hotel was.
The Sheep wandering the explosive laden battle fields.
Me in Belgium.
Some Belgium Cafes.