Ashleigh

Today was the big day, the whole point for this trip it’s
the 95th anniversary Vimy Ridge. The day that Canada over took the
ridge in a matter of hours something that no other troop could do it was the
day that Canada was really recognized as a nation. The day started off with us having to get up at
5am! I know ridiculous the wakeup call sounded like the fire alarm going off so
it wasn’t a pleasant start to the morning. Took us about two hours to drive to
vimy, i can’t really tell you what the scenery was like because i slept the
whole way.
When we arrived it was amazing to see how many kids had come
out for this everywhere you looked all you could see was red. We started off by picking up our lunches and
starting our silent walk up the hill now let me tell you that was a walk it was
so long and man did your legs burn after, but seeing the people lining the
streets so excited to see all the Canadians made it worth it. Next we made our
way to cemetery two, there we got to place candles on the graves we were
standing by and the was a lot of speeches taking place i couldn’t see much
because of the amount of students there, but it was nice to hear them talking
and describing the importance of why we have to remember. It was really
inspiring.
After that ceremony we all made our way up to the monument
it was so beautiful up close but we were all disappointed when we found out
that we could go up on it because it was being prepped for later that day. I really couldn’t enjoy myself because of the
fact that i had woken up sick that morning and i was feeling like crap all day.
We were able to walk through the trenches later and it really gave you a sense
of what it was like for them. Sometimes they would be stuck down there for
months with bullets hailing over them, the recreated it very nicely.
After lunch everybody gathered outside the monument for the
big ceremony there were so many big important people there but it was hard to
see any of them even on the jumbo tron because i’m so short L at this point i was
just ready to go home because it was pouring rain and it had been all day and i
had just helped carry our schools flag up the hill so i was freezing and
getting sicker by the minute.
All in all though that day was really eye opening and helped
me realize that we have to keep the memories of these brave men alive forever
because there the reason that we have what we have and they deserve that. It was a real eye opener and i feel blessed
to have gotten this opportunity.

-
Ashleigh Frederick