The British-Canadian Frontline WW1

So, this morning we woke up bright and early (4am) awesome... just awesome and piled onto the coaches and trecked south towards the English Channel. To my delight we had the opportunity to go through the Eurotunnel or The Chunnel. This was a pretty cool experience as the coach drove down a ramp and onto a train that was just a little more than the width of the coach. It parked behind some other cars and the doors on the sides were slide shut. The train than raced forward through its little tunnel all the way under the English Channel to France. There were i think 6 or 7 seperate tunnels whizzing cars and caoches back and forth from France. Once we started moving, we were able to get out of the coach and walk around and look out the windows a little bit. I thought maybe there would be lots of tropical fish.... but it was just dark and black. ha. ah well. Once we arrived in France, it looked a lot like Canada. There was loads of snow! Yehah! We drove for about an hour out of France and into Belgium.

We stopped at Sactuary Wood, the home of Hill 62 which was a Briitsh-Canadian frontline during World War 1. Literally, about 15 minutes before we arrived there Paul Martin just left the site. He was there visiting and doing various political things. We called his driver and tried to get him to stay so we could meet him etc. but, he took off. Ah well... probaly had something to do with meeting 175 Canadian University students.

There was a tiny little museum at Santuary Wood that was run by a family that owned the land and had upheld the site. It is one of the only WW1 sites that still has intact trenches, not destroyed during WW2. It was incredible walking through the trenches in the mud and snow and attempting to imagine what it must have been like for soldiers here.

A view from inside the trenches. Unbelievable.

I found these holes to be particularly interesting. These are holes in the ground made by exploded shells. Unreal. Absolutely unreal. Words really can't describe it.

While walking up and down the aisles of graves, one can't help but think about life. The value of it, why we are here and where we are going... Not to put it in a morbid way, but all these graves are arranged so neatly, row by row, but apparently the bodies are all buried in random piles in this immediate area. The graves are an attempt to bring order to the chaotic slaughtering of these soldiers.

Tyne Cot Cemetary.

After departing Hill 62 we made our way to Tyne Cot Cemetary, which is the largest British military cemetary. I thought that Hill 62 was unreal, but words can definetly not describe the feeling that a place like this gives you. I walked among the graves in silence along with all the other students. Some students were weeping as they walked, while some remained motionless while staring at the rows and rows of graves.

There were graves similar to this one scattered throughout the cemetary. Not only is it unreal to think of the number of young lives lost in this war, but that so many of the bodies were unidentified and remembered merealy as A Soldier. It is impossible to imagine, that if the war had been right now, all of us university students wouldn't be bounding around various parts of Europe, but we would be lting in the mud in some trenches similar to the ones seen at Hill 62. The feeling brought forth from the visit to this cemetary is indescribable. I wish that i wrote some things down in a journal immediately after being there. I hope that I can always reflect back on that experience because it certainly grants one with a hint of perspective on the world and the terror that was created from WW1.

The Midnight Express to the Land of the Scots....Edinburgh.

Thursday nite finally came and a group of 8 of us took the train into London where we caught the Oh so glamerous "Midnite Express" as we called it. UNfortunately, the trip was the farthest thing from glamerous. It departed at 7pm and got into Edinburgh at around 7am. It was a nightmare... absolutely packed with people. I didnt sleep at all. I did everything i could to try and find a comfortable position but to no end. the worst thing was... my but kept falling asleep, but i never could!!! Why couldn't my but stay awake so that I could go to sleep! It had no consideration for my feelings, none whatesoever. Sheesh. At any rate, we finally arrived at 7am and we went straight to the Hostel. I loved the hostel, it was so homey and the people were awesome. We had a few cups of free coffee when we arrived and we headed out on to the streets to explore beautiful Scotland.

We walked through the streets of Edinburgh sort of aimlessly, not really knowing what we were going to do. We eventually decided to head for Arthur's Seat, which is a huge cliff on the outskirts of Edinburgh. The above is the Scotland National Monument that can be seen from almost anywhere in Edinburgh.

So here she is...Arthur's Seat. I love it. We started hikin' up er.

What can I say? I had to go.

We were thinking of taking the path all the way up, that wound all around in a sorta long way. Then we thought.. thats a dumb idea and we just sprawled straight up the side grabbing at grass and crawling up the cliff. When we got near the first peak the view was incredible. We could see the ocean on one side and Edinburgh on the other. It really was amazing and SHOULD NOT be missed if ever travelin gto Edinburgh. It was also a perfect day. It was fairly warm and an awesome clear blue sky. The above pic shows a long shot of Edinburgh castle.

We came across the remains of an old church on the side of Arthur's Seat. There certainly wasn't much left of it. I think it was about 3-400 years old. Very cool.

I honestly loved it up here. AMAZING! Definetly one of the highlights, if not THE highlight of my trip to Europe so far.

Rockclimbing an old church at Arthur's Seat 

2 Parts Slanty Shanty in Edinburgh

I met up with Irish Tim at around noon at the train station in central Edinburgh. We first walked to his uncle's place and dropped all our stuff off then had a nice little lunch. It was about 5 minutes from the train station. SWEEEEET location!!! I never actually met his uncle, he never seemed to be there when we were, but I am infinitely grateful for the chance to stay his place. Tim and I wandered through one of Edinburgh's National Galleries. It was a portrait gallery of random Scots. It wasnt too exciting. We then made our way up the Royal Mile (the main street in Edinburgh) up to Edinburgh Castle. Once again ...another beautiful view!

Heres another shot of Arthur's seat from afar. We ended up hikin all the way to the top ridge there. It was wilddd..

Edinburgh: A Canon's Perspective

It cost a hefty £9 to get into the castle, but we soon found out there was tons to see. Almost immiediately after we entered the gates, it got very cold and huge clouds rolled over the castle. Rain began to pour down onto us, which then changed to hail. We ended up sprinting up this hill in the hail at a castle. It was wild. I got a piece in my eye. We ran into the Scottish war museum. It was fasinating to see. It had a history of all the weapons and uniforms, from swords to machine guns. The scottish uniforms are so impressive and daring with their crazy kilts. I could have spent a long time in there, but we were sort of in a rush to see everything. Outside there was a wee dog cemetary. I thought that was kinda weird. So i took a pic of it!

Dropkick Murphys!!!!!!!!!

That night we visited a local Irish pub. Why we went to an Irish pub in Scotland is beyond me, but that is where we ended up. I took a pictur eof this sign for my brother Mark because he is a fairly big follower of the Dropkick Murphy's...at leas the used to be. So.. there it is. Probaly the origin of the band name

What visit to Edinburgh would be complete without a tour of the Scotch Whiskey Heritage Centre. We got some free sampels and a free glass, which was nice. I learned a lot about the history of Scotch Whiskey. There is quite a proud heritage involved. Sheeeesh. There was a little ride inside where we got inside these kegs that drove us through the history of Scotch Whisky. Good times.

There isn't much to be said about this picture...except that it is me.....riding a lion.

So, this morning I woke up at Tim's uncle's place and had a coffee and a bowl of cereal. I was reading the newspaper that was left on the table and there was an article inside that said something about Dolly the cloned sheep being in Scotland's Royal Museum. This then became my mission. I found out that the Royal Museum was indeed in Ediniburgh. Thus, after a morning of wandering around in Edinburgh's National gallery (a different one), which was quite good. (lotsa good impressionist stuff). I broke off from the group and made my way to the Royal Museum to visit little Dolly. I wandered around for about an hour searching for DOlly, finally I found her. ANd wow... what an amazing site. I really didnt expect much, but it was sorta cool seeing the cloned sheep. But it really was just a stuffed sheep. Note that you can actually see multiple Dollys in this picture. This proves that she really was a clone. Ha. Right. At any rate, the rest of the Royal Museum was quite nice. There was a huge exhibit on extinct animals which was fasinating to look at.

Tim and I could definetaly not help but take a picture of this little sticker at a place called Finnegan's Wake. A Montreal Canadians sticker in Scotland?!?!?!?!! Right on. I had a little moment of Canadian pride. GO LEAFS GO!!!! Oh.. and there was this crazy old scottish guy in the band that was playing here. He was crazy... and old.

The second nite of the trip, I ended up staying at High Street Hostel because Tim had to leave back to Belfast so I couldn't stay at his Uncle's again. I absolutely loved the environment here at this hostel. I felt immediately part of the community there after only a few hours of being there. There were lots of Canadians there and many of the staff were Canadian as well. On the saturday nite there was a going away party for one of the Canadian managers in the lounge which was a lot of fun, even though I didn't know any of the inside jokes or things they were talking about in their speeches. I'm looking forward to meeting more travellers around various hostels when i do my independant travelling. Most backpackers I have met have just been so friendly, chill and outgoing.