Armistice Day Ypres Belgium

The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month (89 years later) Yesterday we did our first driving trip while here. We drove over to Ypres (Leper in Flemish) in West Flanders. In Ypres there is a monument to the British soldiers who went through this town on their way to the front during World War One. The monument was built and completed ten years after the war and has held a "Last Post" ceremony every day since. The "Last Post" is the British "Taps" that is played when a soldier gets buried. To date this ceremony has proceeded non-stop for 27,200 times. The local Ypres fire department provides the buglers. The monument has the names of 58,000+ people who's bodies were never found. The town held a parade and ceremony at the Menin Gate which commenced at 11am. There were a few speaches and prayers said for the fallen and then at the conclusion of the ceremony they dropped poppy flowers into the monument. We stood in the off and on rain for the ceremony and at the completion of it the sun broke through the clouds and the day became a beautiful fall day. We then went and had a nice lunch at a cafe in the Grande Plaza of Ypres. After that we took a walk to a WWI cemetery. Tori was asking about the Belgian chocolates and kept bugging us for some so we hit a local chocolate shop and she proceeded to pick out gummy candy for her treat. The chocolate was wonderful. We then headed home with another quick stop along the way. We drove into France for a drive by of my Grandmother's home town. She was born in Halluin France which borders Menen Belgium (when I say borders you literally are at on the street and at the street light there is a sign that says Halluin on it. So the town is divided by two countries and the line is right down the middle. I plan on taking a trip back to Halluin when we don't have the kids and I can go cemetary searching for long forgotten releatives. Overall it was a great first adventure and to make it all the better Buffy had a great reaction to the whole trip. First she wasn't all that excited to go to Ypres (thinking it was one of my WWI battlesites that she would be bored at) so as we drove into West Vlaaderland (West Flanders in English) she tried to read the sign. When I said that we were in Flanders she almost hit me. Well in Canada there is a famous poem called "In Flanders Field" writen by a Doctor during the Great War. She has it memorized and was almost in tears that we were going there. Then we crossed into France, well she had used her passport as collateral for the GPS unit we were using to navigate with. We don't need a passport here in Belgium but in France we are required to carry it. Thankfully the old border gates are empty and we didn't get pulled over by the police. So I definitely had fun with that one. I had heard that the old gates were vacant but didn't let on to Buffy. So in the end it was a great trip. Now on to finding a house.