The whys and the hows

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To start with, it has to be made clear that I'm a wee bit of a geek. And by wee bitI mean 'pretty much entirely'. My love of travel was ignited by, of all things, a video game.

It was the late '90s and I was suffering through a long bout of unemployment. While big parts of my day were spent looking for work, my evenings were largely spent playing an online game that was at the time free. When it was released, it was called 'World War II Online', but now it goes by the name 'Battleground Europe '. It was basically a first person simulator based on the Second World War that focused on using real world physics. This lead to a lot of debate among the players of the game in its forums, mostly centered on perceived imperfections in the game. What interested me most in these debates was how often 'common knowledge' was being proven wrong on all the different aspects of the conflict. This drove me to read up on the topic, first through the Internet, then through the library. It began a decade (and climbing) long obsession with the First and Second World Wars. Eventually, reading about these historic places wasn't going to be enough.

Luckily, in the midst of all this I'd found a job at which I excelled and quickly moved my way up through a series of promotions to a middle management position which (at least for a while) rewarded me very well. In 2004, I left the continent for the first time on a 2 week trip inspired by the Canadian Army's involvement in the Second World War, visiting Great Britain, France and The Netherlands. That is another trip for a different blog.

It was June of 2009. My previous job had been outsourced to a call center in India (no hard feelings... it had turned into a pretty shitty job and I feel sorry for them.) I'd almost immediately found a new job, this time with a bonus of travelling. True, it was mostly to a lot of one-stop-light towns in rural America, but occasionally it was somewhere interesting. Most important though is the fact that it loaded me up with air mile points and provided me the opportunity for a longer trip to Europe. This time though, the historical focus would be driven more by the First World War and more socializing.

The plan was this: Myself and a friend were going to fly into London where we would stay a few days and see a Kevin Smith show. From there he was going to go to Greece to visit family while I went to Belgium and Germany. Two weeks later, we would meet in Amsterdam for a couple of days before catching a flight home.

I booked an open jaw ticket from Montreal to London, returning from Amsterdam via Frankfurt. I was going to land in London, from there catching a train to Ieper via Brussels. A few days later I would take the train back to Brussels and fly from there to Berlin. Another train from there to Munich, and the last from there to Amsterdam. My travel arranged and my hotels booked, I was ready for adventures in historical nerdery.

And then the trip's first hitch. My friend had to cancel.

It sucked, but there was nothing for it. I was in full on travel lust mode and wasn't about to cancel. It meant that I had an extra show ticket and would have to pay for a two person room for 5 nights in cases where I couldn't rebook a different room for a reasonable rate. A lot worse things have happened to people on trips, so I'd consider myself lucky if it didn't get worse than that.

Eventually, it reached the point when there was nothing left to plan and it was all over but the waiting...

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Photos

Mother Canada mourns on the plains of Douai
Part of the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_National_Vimy_Memorial]Canadian National Vimy Memorial[/url]