Battle of Waterloo and LLN

Ahhh! I really need to wrap up telling you about our trip- I'm so slow!

Okay, anyway, Sunday was our last full day in Belgium and Brian had really really wanted to visit the historic battle grounds of Waterloo. The Battle of Waterloo was Napoleon Bonaparte's last battle in 1815. He was beat by the English Duke of Wellington (who is a major war hero in the UK) and was taken prisoner. Napoleon sounded like quite a cocky character and was an interesting prisoner of war. The battlefield is basically just current farmland, but is protected from further development. There is a large mound you can climb to the top to get a nice view of the land and envision the battle. Honestly, it wasn't super exciting, but still nice to do it and say you did.

I didn't mention, but Brian, Kelly and Marcy went to Waterloo, and Bruno, who is currently Charlie's landlord, was kind enough to drive us there. He then also took us to the ruined cistern abbey of Villers-la-Ville. It was amazing!
I haven't seen anything like it yet, and it was absolutely incredible. Talk about an amazing place to get married or attend an outdoor play or concert. They currently were doing a summer show of Dracula, and they use the abbey as the backdrop. That had to been so cool!

We arrived back into LLN by about 2ish, which was perfect to finish watching the juniors team, which Charlie coached. Then his seniors team played at 3:30. Earlier in the week, Charlie jammed the crap out of his finger, and it was black, blue and he had to stick a pin in his fingernail to drain the blood. Yuck! But it was okay enough for him to pitch that day. And he pitched great! He's batting again too, but that was more difficult for him with the finger. Sounds like since that game, he's been hitting home runs like crazy! Well they won their game and of course we were all there cheering them on. Afterwards, the guys chill on the bleachers and enjoy some Belgium beers and smokes. Definitely different then how they do in the States!


Dad and Charlie even went out on the field after the game and played a little bit of catch. Was fun for Dad to be catcher - and Charlie pitched him a few fast ones. They used to play catch for hours in the backyard in Mason City, so was neat for them to say they did in Belgium too.

We hitched a ride back to Charlie's flat and had a little family BBQ of Belgium sausages, tried out various Belgium cheeses and a yummy fruit tart for dessert. We had to take off the next morning to fly back to England, so we crashed out after filling up on good food and beer of course!