Texel

This week Bron went to the West Frisian island of Texel as part of the Nynke Dekker group lab outing!

My fellow lab members and I assembled bright and early at Delft train station on Wednesday morning for the 3hr 30min journey to our accommodation at De Koog on Texel. Texel is pronounced Tessel and is the largest of the West Frisian Islands. It is easily accessible by ferry from Den Helder, Holland’s naval base. Despite being only a 20 min ferry ride away, Texel is still pretty wild and untamed. It hasn’t really been over-developed which is good news for the area. Texel is known for sheep farming and its fishing industry. We saw lots of sheep, cows, fields of maize and some fields of lilies.

Texel marked by the ‘A’. To the right of Texel are the islands Vlieland, Terschelling, Ameland and Schiermonnikoog.

Map of Texel, ~60 km in circumference.

After settling in at our accommodation, we hopped onto our rented bicycles and headed out into the rain for a pancake lunch! After lunch we broke into 3 groups and played ‘wie is de mol?’ in the forresty area just West of Den Burg. In the game everyone works together but there is one spy undermining the operation. It was a lot of fun and lovely to cycle through the forresty areas and fortunately the rain abated after lunch. Dinner was at De Koog close to our accommodation. We ate a lot in a few days! When we got home from dinner it had cleared and we could see the stars, it was really beautiful! Francesco and Xander gave me a tour of the Northern Hemisphere stars =) I realised how much I miss the Southern Hemisphere stars. 

Naval base at Den Helder

Pancakes! From left: Serge, Susanne (going on maternity leave soon), Ilja and Jennifer. I share an office with Serge, Susanne and Ilja

Wie is de mol?? From left: Sriram, Xander, Jaap, Dijana, Bojk and Serge. Turns out it was Bojk! (orange jacket)

Cycling through the forrest =)

Mushroom! I became a mol suspect when I stopped to take this photo...

Our 'wie is de mol?' team. Standing from left: me, Xander, Serge, Bojk, Sriram. Seated: Dijana and Jaap. 

Dinner on Wednesday night. This was just the starter! We ate a lot these few days =)

From left clockwise: Ilja, David, Charl, Francesco, Liset and Marijn

Thursday morning saw another early start as we headed to de Cocksburg for Wadlopen! The islands are flanked by the Waddenzee on the East and the North Sea on the West (forgive me if I have my directions incorrect, I am geographically challenged!). Wadlopen is basically walking on the mud flats. During high tide the shore is covered by water but at low tide the mud flats are exposed and are great for walking on. It is comical to see boats stranded on the shore! We had a real farmer-looking guide who guided us around the mud flats. It was really fun but also hard work! At times you sink knee deep in the mud! You have to keep moving otherwise you get really stuck; it’s like sinking sand, it sucks you in. One of the guys got stuck up to his knees and when he was pulled out his shoes stayed behind! Another girl got stuck up to her thighs. There were also more firmer parts to walk on and we also walked in a little river, surprisingly the water was pleasant and not too cold. During our walk we saw lots of seaweeds including Ulva or sea lettuce, lots of crabs, worms, pencil bait, oysters, alikreukel, sea gulls and other birds. The mud is black and sticks to you; we had quite a time cleaning up afterwards!

Our little house =)

Mud flats of the Waddenzee

Stranded

Wadlopen! The mud was soft and squishy to walk on and the seaweed slimy! 

Walking in a rivery part

After lunch at a pub/restaurant nearby overlooking the sea we had some ‘free time’. I cycled with a group down the West-side of the island back to our accommodation at De Koog. We went this way because it is along the dunes and coast line and there is a nature reserve, De Slufter, along the way. There was enough time to have a quick look around De Koog before heading to Oudeschild for dinner. Oudeschild is an old fishing village and it was really lovely soaking up the last of the sun drinking hot chocolate at the harbour.  

View of De Slufter

Sign in the restaurant at De Oudeschild 

Our group head Nynke chilling at the waters edge at the Oudeschild harbour

A boat at Oudeschild harbour at sunset

If you look at the map above you will quickly see that we cycled all around the island on Thursday. We cycled 12 km from De Koog to Oudeschild and 12 km back for dinner alone! We must have cycled at least 50 km on Thursday. I was dead tired and my bum was so sore!! It was a lovely day out though and we were really lucky with the weather. It was mostly sunny all day with a light breeze. I was relieved however not to have to cycle on Friday!

On Friday morning we said goodbye to our accommodation and headed to NIOZ close to the ferry near ‘t Horntje. It was bucketing with rain by the time we got to NIOZ but of all the days to rain Friday was probably the best day so we couldn’t complain. NIOZ is the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. We were given a talk on what NIOZ does and then a tour of their facilities. NIOZ has its home in a modern building and is well equipped! They have their own deep sea going boat (which we didn’t see) and also makes a lot of their own equipment. They have a workshop dedicated to designing and making the gadgets they need for their deep sea research including a unit to test if their goods will survive the pressures a few hundred metres under the ocean.

And then, packed lunch in hand, it was time to go home =( I really enjoyed the trip to Texel. It was a good time to get to know other people in the group and spend a few days outdoors. Texel is lovely but probably not the most beautiful place I have ever been to. It needs something dramatic to add to its old charm, like a few sheer cliffs or something. A lot of people asked me if anywhere in SA is nearly as nice as Texel. How do you tell them that 90% of your country is a 100x to 1000x more beautiful? I had a hard time being polite! Lol.

Needless to say I was smashed when I got home on Friday! The weekend has been a quiet one catching up on home admin and resting. Justin played cricket in Eindhoven today, someone called ahead this time to check if the field was playable! Justin’s figures were 3 for 16 after 8 overs, well done! But his team still lost due to poor batting, come on guys!

At the moment there is an open air movie festival on in Museumpark not far from us. If it stops raining long enough we would be keen to catch a movie there; not sure if a break in the weather and an English movie will coincide though ‘~) We have also done some scouting and found an Irish pub where we can watch some of the rugby World Cup games due to start shortly! Yay! And we can enjoy some yummy Irish fare at the same time =)

Other news is Justin’s trip to Angola has been cancelled, woohoo!! There has been lots of indecision about this trip but I hope this is the last decision! Bron’s official TU Delft contract also starts this week, from 1 September. Hopefully they get all the paperwork done in time. And then this weekend is World Port Day in Rotterdam which we are hoping to check out! Details to follow next time =)

Hope you are well and had a good weekend! Have a good week and happy Spring day!

x

Bruxelles

The weather forecast for Saturday was sunny and warm with no wind, the first good Saturday since Pinkpop! Since there was a special on train tickets to anywhere in Belgium we decided to head to Brussels for a day of exploring!

The train trip to Brussels Central from Rotterdam Central station is about 1 hr 40 min with only 5 stops. As we were about to get onto the train I realised that we had forgotten Marph at home, fail!

Our first stop in Brussels was Grand Place or the Grote Markt, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1988. The large square is lined with guildhalls and the gothic town hall. Grand Place and a third of the city was destroyed by an invasion of the French in 1695 and thereafter was re-built in the medieval style. The square is truly beautiful and has an air of old grandeur about it. We returned a few times during the day to the square.  

We wandered down an interesting side alley from Grand Place and found Manneken Pis, the famous bronze statue of a little boy urinating. The statue is much smaller than I thought it would be! Manneken has 650 different outfits (!) and wears a different one each Saturday from 9am to 6pm. We saw him with and without his clothes on and definitely prefer him without ‘~)

We continued wandering around the city and found the park, the royal palace, Petit Sablon Square, the St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral, the Palais de Justice, The Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert and many comic strip walls! The law courts of Brussels, or the Palais de Justice, is an impressive building built between 1866 and 1883 and is bigger than St Peter’s Basilica in Rome! The building is on a hill and from the top we had an amazing view over Brussels. From here we saw the atomium but we didn’t have time to get there. The St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral looks a lot like the Notre Dame in Paris from the front and is a beautiful church on the inside. The Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert is a covered shopping street but is very fancy and upper class, we couldn’t even afford to buy chocolate there! Lol. The Petit Sablon Square is a small garden lined with 48 columns topped with bronze statues which represent the ancient professions and a fountain in the middle. The Petit Sablon is a really beautiful, serene and calm garden and we enjoyed chilling in the shade for a bit.

Belgium is as well-known for its comic trip art as it is for beer and chocolate. You might know that Belgium is home to Tintin but many other beloved characters such as the Smurfs, Lucky Luke, and many we didn’t recognize also originate, from Belgium. All over the city are comic strip walls, ordinary walls on edges of buildings that have been painted with different comic strips. We had fun finding as many as we could =) We found the Tintin one (close to Manneken Pis) but couldn’t find the Smurfs or Lucky Luke.

It was a toasty day in Brussels, about 28°C, and lunch time was time for a beer! We didn’t have as much time in this trip to try as many different beers as we did in Bruges, but it was still nice to have a Belgian beer in Belgium =) After lunch we had yummy ice-creams which we munched in the Grand Place =)

Before heading home we had time to walk down Nieuwstraat, which the map claimed to be the longest shopping street in Europe. At 300m, I am not convinced it is the longest shopping street in Europe, perhaps the longest pedestrianized shopping street? We were bleak to only find the Tintin shop as we were dashing to catch our train back but it was closed by then anyway. Next time!

We really had a great day in Brussels and are glad we went even if just for a day. The city was busy with many tourists but was not as busy as Bruges was or even some of the cities we visited in the winter which made it pleasant for exploring. Other things we noted was the architecture and the language. The city has an interesting mix of architecture. There are lots of old buildings but many modern ones too and even the styles are varied; some streets feel like you could be Italy, France, medieval Bruges or Holland, a very interesting mix. From that point of view the city feels confused but it all seems to work together. There is also much more French spoken in the city than Dutch in Brussels but we found the opposite to be true in Bruges.

Justin played cricket on Sunday but their side lost =( Justin was a bit expensive at 1 for 51 after 8 overs. And all too soon we are back at work on Monday! This week Bron’s lab group is doing a trip to Texel, one of the West Frisian Islands. We are away for two nights, Wednesday and Thursday. The plan is some fun competitive games for team building, ‘wadlopen’, free time for exploring and a visit to NIOZ, the marine research centre of the Netherlands. Really looking forward! In other news Justin’s trip to Angola looks like it is happening but not being organised very speedily considering they want him there the first two weeks of September, sigh.

Hope you are well and had a good weekend! Till next time!

x

Guildhalls at Grand Place

Old Town Hall at Grand Place

Grand Place

Boibs at Grand Place

Manneken Pis in one of his outfits with a hole in the right place '~)

St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral

Statues in the Petit Sablon (I realise you can't see the garden in this pic but it is really small! Small but lovely =) )

The Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert 

A toro or a moose?

View of Place St. Catherine 

The Tintin comic strip wall!

Some of the other comic strip walls

I like how they used the existing overhanging roof tiles as part of the comic in this one. There is also a cartoon dog behind the real tree which you can't see.

One Lovely Blog

Our friend Belinda Chaplin recently nominated us for a One Lovely Blog award. Thanks Belinda!

To participate, we have to:

- Thank the person who nominated us

- Nominate other deserving blogs to pass the award on to and let them know

- Share 7 random facts about ourselves

We don’t follow that many blogs so the only one we are nominating for the One Lovely Blog award is Lisa’s Living-Laughing-Loving London! (http://europetwenty11.blogspot.com/) We met Lisa during our Contiki ski week in Hopfgarten in February. She is from Australia and is doing the 2 year work-holiday visa thing in London. We love your blog Lisa! Keep up the good work! Looks like you are enjoying the European trip with your parents =)

The other blog we would nominate is Belinda’s blog but since she nominated us I’m not sure if that is allowed, lol. But check it out anyway (http://beeinbosnia.blogspot.com/). We know Belinda from our church in Cape Town and she is doing a great job spreading the word in Banja Luka, Bosnia. Keep blogging Belinda, we love seeing what you have been up to!

Now for 7 random facts about us:

1) This is the first 'summer' we have ever spent entirely in jeans, takkies and fleece tops! How sad.

2) The sun is setting at least an hour earlier than it was about a month ago, sad news indeed. At the time of the solstice it was still light-ish at 22:45! =) But now it is quite dark at 21:30 =( It is also darker later in the mornings. It feels as though summer is almost over before it has even begun.

3) We recently started taking vitamin B and Echinacea tablets. Initially I was sceptical but this is the first week of work that I don’t feel like a sleepy zombie on a Friday night! I am a convert =)

4) Since the arrival of the iPad2 into our lives, Justin has become a complete Angry Birds addict! Bron's chicktionary addiction is mild in comparison.

5) We are not really huge TV watching people but since our rent includes cable TV we have recently become fans of several TV shows. Our faves at the moment are Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, Family Guy, Top Gear, Master Chef and NCIS. Fortunately for us most programs are in English with Dutch subtitles =) Something to keep us company in the long grey winter. Our other project for the winter time is to put together a photo album of our European holiday. 

6) Someone tried to steal Bron’s bicycle from Delft train station last night! Kan jy glo. Feeling super bleak! Generally we feel pretty safe here but bicycles are easy targets for drug addicts with a habit to support… Proof that the grass is not always greener on the other side.

7) There is a special on train tickets to anywhere in Belgium at the moment so we are going to Brussels for the day tomorrow! Yay!

Hope you are well and have a kewl weekend! See you soon for a post on Brussels!

x

Venus fly traps and Pancakes

There is still plenty of the Netherlands we want to see and explore so this weekend we headed out to a new town despite the inconclusive weather forecast! The destination: Leiden!  

Leiden is half an hour on the train, about half-way between Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Leiden is a really beautiful, old university town. The city was the first to open a university and is thus the oldest university town in the Netherlands. There are many canals which you can cross using one of the 88 bridges. The canals are lined with old buildings including the old scale house where goods were weighed as they came off the docks.

Saturday is market day in Leiden. Unlike most other towns, Leiden does not have a central square where the market is held. Consequently the market sprawls along all the canals throughout most of the town. Market day is always very festive but it also makes the city very busy and chaotic. We always enjoy the tunes of the barrel organ always to be found on market day; this was the first time we heard the Greece melody! =)

After exploring the city and the market, we headed to the hortus botanicus or botanical gardens at the university. The gardens have nothing on Kirstenbosch but are still pretty cool and have such a rich history and impressive collection in a relatively small space. The collection was started by Carolus Clusius in 1594 and is continues to grow today. The collection includes a Ginkgo biloba tree from 1785, the oldest in Europe; cycads from South Africa and an impressive collection of orchids, tropical plants, sub-tropical plants and ferns. We enjoyed the carnivorous plants such as the Venus fly-trap and pitcher plants, but they have so many after a while they feel very creepy! The greenhouses reminded us very much of the climate in Durban. Now we know where to go to get our fix of hot and humid weather!

By this time the rain had set in and it was time to find a snack and warm drink! We headed to the Oudt Leyden thinking we couldn’t go wrong if they have been serving traditional Dutch pancakes since 1907! Not having tried any here since we arrived it was time! The Dutch are serious about their pancakes so forget the image of two small rolled up pancakes on offer at the local fete. The pancakes we were served were 40 cm in diameter! Bron had an apple and cinnamon pancake and Justin had an apple, rum and raisin pancake! Very yummy!

After much indulgence and rain it was time to head home.

Justin had a cricket game on Sunday. The whole team drove one and a half hours to Eindhoven only to discover that the field was water logged. Don’t they have telephones in Eindhoven?? Fail. We rescued the day by going for a nice long cycle in the afternoon. We cycled about 15 km and almost made it to Delft!

Happy birthday to Dad Cross for today! And congratulations to Martin and Kirsten who were married on Saturday! Woohoo! Sorry we weren’t there =(

Hope you all have a good week!

x

Windmill in Leiden

View of canal and market in Leiden

The old weigh house

The 'winter garden' at the hortus botanicus

Sunflowers!

Inside one of the greenhouses

One of the many different orchid species

Pancake time! 

The route of our bike ride on Sunday afternoon =)

Londoners in Town!

I realise it has been almost two weeks since the last blog post. Apologies!

This last week we had Bron’s sister Michelle and her husband Graham staying with us. We had a kewl but very busy week showing them some of the sights of our new home =) Thanks for coming guys! Hope you had a kewl time too =)

Highlights from the week include:

-          Visiting Kinderdijk

-          Exploring Delft

-          Exploring Amsterdam. Michelle also went exploring during the Gay Pride Parade on Saturday. Brave move!

-          The Heineken Experience in Amsterdam

-          Visiting The Hague and braving the wind for a quick walk on Scheveningen beach

-          Sundowners on the water’s edge at the old harbour, more than once ‘~)

-          A few days of real sunshine! (but now we are back to rain and epic winds)

-          Happy Birthday banners and balloons hanging all over our flat to celebrate Graham’s birthday!

-          Home-made peppermint crisp tart =)

-          Playing Ticket to Ride (aka the train game!)

-          The boys trying out all the different beers available

Justin also played two cricket games on Saturday. In the first game the opposition made 180 runs from 30 overs which Justin’s team (VOC) fell 30 runs short of. But Justin had tidy figures at 3/25 off 6 overs. VOC did much better in the second game with 250 runs from 30 overs. The opposition were at 80 for 5 after 18.3 overs when the rain came down and play was stopped 9 balls before it was possible to call a result. Better luck next time boys! In the second game Justin took a ball to the foot and now sports a swollen, purple and blue big toe! Ouch!

In other news, Justin may have to go to Angola for work at the beginning of September, oh yay. Yesterday he went to the travel clinic for a yellow fever and hepatitis A jab. He also got a general booster shot. Way more exciting is the trip to Texel (pronounced Tessel), one of the West Friesian Islands, planned by Bron’s new lab. We are going the week after next for about 3 days. Woohoo! Really looking forward! Hoping the weather will improve substantially by then!

This weekend we are keen to get out and about on Saturday and Justin has a cricket game on Sunday. Hope the rain stays away long enough… Ideas for Saturday include exploring the university town of Leiden or Dordrecht, one of the oldest cities in the Netherlands.  

Hope you are well and having a good week!

Until next time

x 

Twins at the tram stop

Sundowners! 

Chilling in deck chairs on the water

Heineken Experience! 

Giant Amsterdam lettering

Twins in the 'd'

Happy Birthday to You! Home-made peppermint crisp tart =)