On the morning of my birthday, at breakfast, Jenny wished me a happy birthday and presented me with a gift of Belgian chocolates! These six chocolates were cat-shaped, and there were two white chocolate cats, two milk chocolate, and two dark chocolate. Later, as we prepared to leave the hostel to visit the “In Flanders Field Museum” that morning, while Stevie J was teaching someone how to tie a tie, Murphy Minor gave me two more presents: a chocolate dog and a pink and white large spiral lollipop, which she warned me not to eat all at once. It was great being showered down with gifts!
At the museum, Mr Hey mentioned me and two other people who had their birthday on the same day. We then got to enter the war museum and I took my time looking around and reading a lot of the information (though don’t ask me to recall any of it!). I think most of my friends had left by the time I left but I wasn’t the last one to leave.
We then had a little bit of time to spare at the hostel. Some of my friends were already walking around Ypres at this point while others were looking at manga stuff on the Internet. It didn’t occur to me to leave the hostel on my own (because I’m lame like that), but I did have some washing to catch up with (because I’m doubly lame like that). I think I also used that time to send a few emails as well on the annoying AZERTY keyboard the hostel had while listening to the Narwhal Song that some other people from my tour group had playing on the computer that they were using. In the end it was probably a good thing I didn’t see where the others were or that would have ruined the surprise for me when they came back: they presented me with a lovely ladybird cake. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to eat it at that point as we were about to go to Fromelles in France, and I wanted to save it for later because it almost looked too good to eat!
Oddly enough, although I hadn’t felt motion sickness at all earlier on tour, I felt slightly ill on the bus on my birthday, of all days. When we stopped at the first war memorial, I gladly took a breath of fresh air. This graveyard was rather small compared to the other ones that we had visited, but it was still fairly substantial. I wonder what Archduke Franz-Ferdinand would say to all of this? (I’m pretty sure most if not all of the graveyards we visited predominantly consisted of graves from World War One, and I think the death toll for World War Two was supposed to be higher.)
When I had finished looking around, I joined some of the others who were standing around near the bus. Someone went to the toilet on the bus, and not long after they did, we heard a whirring sound and then the splash of water hitting the road! Of course, that just led us to pretty bad conclusions. Sarah said, “Okay, guys... nobody do a number 2 in there!” Eric later tried to reassure us that that water was simply tap water waste or something.
We visited another two war memorials after that. The first was very small and didn’t have any graves (to my knowledge)- just a sculpture showing a man carrying a wounded comrade to safety. The second was larger. Eden borrowed my camera at that point so he could take 11 pictures of the door of the war memorial. Apparently the door was “cool.”
Our next destination was another town, Radinghem en Wappes, or to be more specific, a cathedral in Radinghem en Wappes. We had a rehearsal here for the concert that night. Wind Orchestra wasn’t playing, so I just warmed up with Chorale, and ate bits of my (now partially squashed) cake when I had a break. We then got to have a quick rehearsal on stage, after which Mr Hey called the three birthday girls to the front, and Chorale sang “Happy Birthday” to us- in four-part vocal style, which sounded really nice and was by far the best I’ve ever had this song sung to me.
Dinner soon followed and was prepared by the local people. It was only sandwiches (ham sandwiches and cheese sandwiches) but that was probably to be expected as there were so many of us to be served. The cakes that were served for dessert tasted pretty good though.
Following dinner, we got changed and had to walk to the cathedral in concert uniform. If I remember correctly, it was a pretty cold night, and I was quite grateful for my black wrap. In this concert, we got to sit on small chairs to the sides if we weren’t performing which allowed us to see what the other groups had to perform. Senior Wind Quintet was of particular interest to me because they played one of the songs that Junior Wind Quintet was learning before it ceased to run.
We returned to the hostel pretty late after this concert. On the bus, everyone in Angus’ room yelled at him to do his travel diary on the bus so that they didn’t have to shove him in the bathroom again. When we got back to the hostel, it was 11.30pm the first time I checked my watch. We were served waffles for desert, following which we didn’t have a specified lights out, it was just “go to bed as soon as you’re ready.” I don’t remember exactly what time I did end up going to bed, but it was almost definitely after midnight.
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