Here is the model of a rail gun.

On Sunday we went to museum called Liberty Park, it has the most military vehicles in Europe and below is one of the bullets at the museum which was fired by a Rail gun. (Above ) the gun was so big it took two railroad tracks to hold it.

World War II cemetery

                                                                                            
                                  
        We went two a World War II cemetery last week.  I don't know how many were buried there, but there were a bunch of soldiers that were unknown, and almost all of of them were younger than thirty.
      

While we were there were a lot of butterflies and I got a lot of pictures of them.  Anna

Here are some mushroom pictures that I took while we were hiking.  Because it is so moist here, there are lots more mushrooms here than at home.  We have seen a lot of large colorful mushrooms, and I think they're really cool.  -Leah

We went to Brussels Belgium on Saturday to try to do some scuba diving, see the Waterloo Battlefield, and last of all check out the Atomium.

Our first plan did not go so well; my co worker Steve Oplatek and I were looking forward to scuba diving in the indoor dive pool known as Nemo 33 (http://www.nemo33.com/) but we both forgot our Padi cards and could not get in to dive.  Oh well that is the way it goes, we came here to work not dive, so its no surprise we forgot the cards.  The good news is we now know where the place is and what to bring and not bring the next time we're out here.

After accepting defeat at Nemo 33 we went to the Waterloo Battlefield where Napoleon was defeated for the last time against the allied army.  It was this battle that marked a turning point in the history of Europe and a new era of peace for Europe.  Below is a picture of the five of us before we hiked up the Lion Mound which was a monument built in memory of the soldiers who lost their lives in the battle.

Here is the view from the top with Debbie climbing the stairs.

Here is Ethan on top of the Lion Mound.

Here is Leah on top of the Lion Mound.

We also found this really cool map of the battlefield on top of the mound.  You could get a very good perspective of the battlefield from up on top of the mound.  Overall this was a very cool place to visit; I am glad I didn't have to live during this period of history.

Someone from work recommended that I visit a place called the Atomium.  Which is a very unusual building that was built in Brussels for the 1958 World Fair.  We got to go inside and all the way up to the top of the building.  Even better I got a nice souvenir shirt!

Sorry no pictures today, the function that is supposed to allow us to add pictures hasn't been working for the  past few days.  Yesterday we went to a WWII cemetery and most of the soldiers were pretty young like 18 through 30.
-Anna

The Living History Festival

On Sunday, we went to the Living History Festival.  They had reenactments of different types of battles, from different times in history.  These are a few of the swords that were displayed at the Living History Festival.

 There were many different groups of soldiers at the festival.  There were Roman gladiators, a Scottish warrior band, Napoleonic soldiers, Medieval soldiers, 16th century pirates, Viking warriors, and WWII soldiers.  This picture is of the re-enactment of a 15th century battle.  In this battle, they had cannons and archers.

This was the re-enactment of a WWII battle.  This re-enactment was my favorite.  We were standing so close to the soldiers that we kept getting hit by bullet shells!  -Leah

The archaeological park in Xanten

On Saturday, we went to an archaeological park in Xanten, Germany.  The park is built where there used to be a Roman town.  This is a picture of the ruins of a roman temple.  Also in the archaeological park , they had a museum(which had lots of roman artifacts), some rebuilt roman buildings, and other things.                                                                        

This is a picture of a reconstructed amphitheater at the archaeological park.  It was very big.

Ethan