cobblestones and places unknown: picnic and ieper

What a beautiful weekend! The weather was SO nice. On friday since we didn't have school or work, Sey, Anna, and I decided to go have personal day. We bought some delicious salads and soup at a local store, then headed to Park Cinquantenaire for a picnic. It was sunny but not too hot, just the perfect picnic weather. Cinquantenaire is one of the few places in such a big city with such nice greenery, so it was nice to sit and hang out with a beautiful view that wasn't all cement! About midway through our picnic, some young Belgian boys came over and started talking with us. I use the term talking lightly, as they could barely speak English. There were about 5 of them and they looked to be about 16, so I think they were trying to be cool by talking to older foreign girls. Their English phrases included "what is your mother's name" and "where is lamp". It is amazing to me that despite this, we were still about to talk for about 20 minutes. After living in a foreign country for a while, I've come to find out that gestures, tone of voice, and body language are sometimes all you need to have a conversation. Between my passable French and their little English, we talked about their view of US politics, their musical taste, and where they were from. It was a fun little experience. After our picnic, we headed down to Grand Place for a quick visit to the Chocolate Museum. This was pretty disappointing- it was only a single house with a few informational posters. After the museum, we decided on a little retail therapy. We hit up H&M, which is a really popular store over here and really reasonably priced. I ended up buying quite a few things and left for home happy. The next day we got up early to meet the bus to go on a Furman group tour of Ieper, a Belgian city that has a lot of World War 1 memorials. It is in the Flemish province of West Flanders. While there, we checked out several cathedrals and many cemetaries. Iepers occupied a strategic position during World War 1 because it stood in the path of Germany's planned sweep across the rest of Belgium and into France from the north. The cemetaries we visited were beautiful, but it was sad to think about the amount of lives lost. World War 1 truly was such a devastating war, and all those gravestones just really drove the point home. We also got to visit the "In Flanders Fields" museum, which was quite enlightening. All in all, it was a beautiful and reflective day. Tomorrow I'm heading to the church I've been attending, called St. Andrews. It is affliated with the Church of Scotland and reminds me of St. Luke at home, just with a Scottish pastor! Hopefully I'll also get to check out the marketplace. It's something that happens in Place Flagey (a square near where I live) every Sunday and is full of vendors selling delicious foods and other items. Here's to a restful Sunday!