Went to France for Breakfast

1.My Cappuccino,

2. The sign in the window that lied to me

3. At the border, of course no controls these days (I didn't even have my passport with me)

4. Back in Belgium, Ypers' main cathederal.

5. A small WW1 cemetery in town

Thats right, I went to France for breakfast. Why? Well, becasue I can. I had to make it back for language class at 1:30 pm, but had the morning to kill. I felt like a crepe or croissant for breakfast, so what better place to go than France. From Oostende where I am living its only about 35 minutes to the border. Incidentially its probably about the same to the north into Holland, so stay tuned for dinner in the Netherlands possibly. As I am not working right now, Eva pays for the food, but if we head up there, who knows, we may just have to go Dutch.

So I pulled off at the first town just over the border in France, Bray Dunes and looked for a place to eat. As I have often discovered in Europe, early bird does not get the worm, I had a hard time finding a place open before nine. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that it is a small sea side resort in FAR northern France, out of season. The season (weather-wise) really only being about two months long. But finally I found a place which seemed open that had a sign in the window saying Restauarant/Creperie and went inside. The one employee was outside when I walked in, smoking of course. He didn't seem too interested in giving up his cigarette break for me (after all, he is French, they like to smoke) and I waited a bit for him to come in. When he handed me the menu, it turned out they were just open for drinks and so I ordered a cappuccino, wanting to have something. On the way out of France I did find a grocery store open, and stoped to pick up some "pain au chocolat" so that I could really say I went to France for beakfast, and I was hungry.

On the way back to Oostende, I went by way of Ypers tucked somewhere sort of inland of southwest Belgium. The town and its surrounding area was the site of one of some of the worst battles (or stalemates) of World War One. It is where trench warefare and chemical warfare became "popular." 450,000 people died here and the whole countryside is covered with cemeteries. The city was mostly destroyed during the war, but was rebuilt more or less replicating the old buildings. I didn't have much time there, but walked around a little, seeing the cathedral, a few memorials and one small cemetery. I guess the people who remember WW1 first hand are all but gone now, as you'd have to be around 100, but in this town, there are constant reminders.