On Sunday morning I went to Lille’s Sunday market with a few of my friends. I was expecting stall upon stall of glorious French treats, but we soon discovered that Lille’s Sunday market is a bit different: We saw a sea of clothes, jewelry stands, and low priced fruits and vegetables. There were towel sellers, and tents piled high with Arabic foods like olives, dates, and honey. Rotisserie chicken vendors lined the streets. It wasn’t at all what I expected, and that’s ok. That morning we experienced Lille like the locals, and I enjoyed not being a tourist for a while.
Then in the early afternoon, the program took us all to Bruges, Belgium – I love how casual it was to just take a day trip to another country. I had been looking forward to seeing Bruges, Venice of the North, for a long time! And oh… my…. goodness. I was not disappointed. That place is absolutely gorgeous. Canals crisscrossed beneath little coble stone streets lined with medieval architecture. Low arched bridges connected the streets, and the old stone walls that rose up on either side of the canals were covered at intervals in patches of rich green moss.
We took a boat tour on these canals, which was a personal favorite part of the trip so far. A few willow trees scattered the banks of the canals, leaning out across the water and swooping down to carve green, shaded caverns into the air. The evening light filtered down through the trees and pooled on the surface of the water in little circles. It was magnificent. And drifting there along the canal, I felt nothing but bliss. I thought of little other than being there, of drinking in the light and the air and the architecture and that European kind of beauty. And I of course had French fries and Belgian waffles and Belgian chocolate! All were superb, especially the waffles. I chose a luxurious strawberry and whipped cream topping – thick and warm, just the right amount of sweet.
Then on Monday we went back to Belgium to visit important WWI memorials. WWI greatly ravaged northern Europe, and so there are quite a number of sites dedicated to the terrible tragedy. Our first stop was Tyne Cot Cemetery in Passchendaele. During the British offensive of 1917, 500,000 soldiers died in the area over a period of just 100 days. In October of 1917 Austrian soldiers captured the grounds that the cemetery now covers, and used it as a dressing station. Soldiers who died of their injuries instead of recovering were buried immediately on the spot, and so the cemetery was begun. Graves with unidentified bodies are marked as “Known unto God”, and the back wall of the cemetery is a Memorial to the Missing.
For such a terrible tragedy, the cemetery is beautiful. There are flowers planted at every single headstone, and little red poppies left by visitors can be seen dotting the graves. Red poppies are a symbol of sorts for the First World War in northern Europe, because they were the first flowers to grow in the mine-infested battlefields fafter the war. A symbol of resilience, perhaps. I discovered that day that cemeteries are best experienced alone. I broke off and wandered up and down the rows, reading the personalized inscriptions at my own pace. These were a few of my favorites:
“In memory of dearly beloved brother of Elizabeth, John and George.”
“My son I loved you so dearly my deepest sorrow can never be healed – Mother.”
“Would some thoughtful hand in this distant land please scatter some flowers for me.”
“Peace perfect peace with loved ones far away.”
“For all of us he did his best.”
“You have left behind some broken hearts that never can forget you.”
“Sacrificed to the fallacy that war can end war.”
“In memory of dearly beloved brother of Elizabeth, John and George.”
“My son I loved you so dearly my deepest sorrow can never be healed – Mother.”
“Would some thoughtful hand in this distant land please scatter some flowers for me.”
“Peace perfect peace with loved ones far away.”
“For all of us he did his best.”
“You have left behind some broken hearts that never can forget you.”
“Sacrificed to the fallacy that war can end war.”
Reading these in a cemetery is a powerful experience. Because you don’t really read them, you discover them. You see them peeping out from behind flowers and you crouch down, and you feel the weight of the world just a bit more strongly. I wandered through row upon row until I realized that I was crying. Maybe because it felt like the most natural thing in the world to cry. In some small way I felt the sadness of Elizabeth, John, and George at losing a most beloved brother; and losing him at that, to the fallacy that war can end war. These young men were not manufactured machines spit out to fight a cold-blooded war. These young men were not born to die young, to be torn away from loving families and bright futures, to know fear too well and happiness too little. These were young men at the prime of their lives to whom the world was cruel enough to grant a most horrible end that should never have been their destiny in the first place. And so I cried. For the cruelty of the world, for the tears shed before mine. It seems like we are born to believe the fallacy that humanity is humane.
We left the cemetery for the In Flanders Museum in Ypres, that confronts the visitor with the consequences of The Great War. They had displays of different artifacts from the war, and videos played throughout the museum with actors portraying the personal experiences of soldiers, nurses, and surgeons during the war. The actors spoke directly to the camera in all of the videos, and it was eerie to say the least. Most of all, it made me angry – angry that while none of us are oblivious to the devastation created by war, they are still raged over, and over, and over again.
We had dinner in Ypres, then walked to the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing, dedicated to the British and commonwealth soldiers who were killed in the Ypres Salient of WWI and whose graves are unknown. We stayed to watch the Last Post Ceremony, which is a tradition in Ypres - every night at 8:00 pm, since 1928, the missing are remembered. I couldn’t see much of the ceremony because there were so many people, but I heard the Bugles sounding clearly in the large, arched tunnel. I think I felt what needed to be felt.