We are now in Brussels having spent the last 2 nights in Ypres (Ieper). Ypres was really great, we took the Thalys train from Paris up to Brussels and changed for a smaller intercity train to Ypres, after wandering around a bit we finally managed to find our way to the main square and found ourselves a budget hotel to stay at. Ypres is in the Flemish part of Belgium so none of us had much of a clue with the language, most people speak English though so we got on quite easily.

The first afternoon we had planned to get out to the war graves cemetery and look for Francis Gilbert Dowling’s grave but it was a bit too late by the time we went to hire bikes etc. Turns out they want all the bikes back by 4:00 and it was already 3:00. So we spent the afternoon in the “In Flanders Fields” museum which was quite interesting. Although it looks old Ypres was pretty much completely rebuilt following world war 1, German shelling pretty much flattened the place during the war. The food and beer in Belgium is fantastic compared to France, I was getting very sick of ham and cheese on a roll. We also got to see the sounding of the Last Post at the Mennen gate which was built to commemorate the war dead whose bodies were never found.

Next day we got up earlyish and hired bikes to ride the 6km out to the Cemetary. It turned out to be quite easy to find our way there and to locate the grave. We took lots of pictures and left a little flag there to mark that somebody had visited, took a while but finally somebody from the family had gotten there.

Anyway this morning we took the train back here to Brussels and tomorrow afternoon we fly out to London and then I have to start looking for work.

Catch you later

Matt