Marph goes to Switzerland

Last week saw the first of our Summer breaks away! We headed off to the land of mountains, chocolates, cheese fondues, efficient trains and cow bells! 

The holiday started with a night in Lausanne; exploring the UNESCO Heritage Site Lavaux Vineyards, the old city centre and walks along the lake. 

A cool house in the vineyards

A Swiss train passing by the vineyards overlooking the lake

Chilling out with a friendly creature cooling off and grabbing a drink

After Lausanne, we headed to our destination for the week: Lauterbrunnen. Nestled in the valley with amazing views of the Jungfrau, Monch and Eiger mountains and waterfalls galore, Lauterbrunnen is ideally situated for exploring, and explore we did!

The first day dawned bright and clear and the perfect opportunity for heading up the Jungfraujoch! What a great experience! 

We visited the towns of Lucerne...

.... Brienz and Thun on the lake shore....

.... Bern ....

... Interlaken ...

and Geneva.

But we also enjoyed being in the mountains and went for many walks!

The view from the Bachalpsee, an hour walk from Grindelwald First

Chilling in the icy snow at the Bachalpsee. What a good way to rescue the melted chocolate! 

From Lauterbrunnen, we took the cable car up to Grutschalp and enjoyed a scenic walk to Murren where we took another cable car down to Stechelberg. 

A waterfall on the walk to Murren

A last stop before heading home to pack; the Trummelbach waterfalls. Completely set in the mountains, this waterfall drains melting snow of the Jungfrau, Eiger and Monch mountains with up to 20 000 litres flowing past per second!

Be sure to check out Justin and Bronwen's blog posts for more of their amazing sun-filled week in Switzerland! 

The next adventure: Scotland in August!

Hanging out in Haarlem

After a fairly cold and wet spring, we are finally enjoying some summer weather. Temperatures are in the mid 20's and the coats have been packed away. When the weather in the Netherlands is good you have to make the most of it. Sitting in our local park on Friday evening with a bottle of wine and some yummy snacks was the perfect way to start the weekend. And the other great thing about this time of year is that the sky is still fairly light at 10pm! 

Saturday was another nice day and we decided to head out to Haarlem. Haarlem is fairly close to Amsterdam and we had been there only once before. It was however in the middle of winter on a cold wet day and so we didn't see much of the city. This time round we were able to explore and really enjoy this beautiful town. 

Like most large towns in the Netherlands, Saturday is market day. We stopped for some home made ice-cream and also found a place selling a range of yummy pies (including bobotie pies!). The rest of the afternoon was then spent walking and exploring.

View across the canal towards the town centre

Enjoying the home made ice cream

The market

Some of the old buildings overlooking the town square

Another view of the town square

The ornate church tower

Molen de Adriaan

Enjoying the canal

Statue of Laurens Janszoon Coster 

(for a while it was thought that he had invented the printing press and not Gutenberg
- some interesting conspiracy theories on the web if you search for 'Legend of Koster')

Cricket : South Africa vs Netherlands

As part of their preparations for the ICC Champions Trophy, the South African team stopped over in the Netherlands and played an ODI against the Dutch national side. 

Out of a population of approximately 16 million, about 6,500 play cricket. Compared to football, which has 1 million registered players in the Netherlands, cricket is a relatively unknown sport here. So this was a great opportunity to introduce some colleagues from work to this great game. Most had heard of cricket, but almost none of them knew what the game is about or what the rules are. This video clip had done the rounds at the office and was about as close as most had come to seeing cricket...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEH4ahCCrJo

So basically they have no idea at all! But interestingly they all knew that the Dutch national side had beaten England in an important tournament: 

http://www.espncricinfo.com/netherlands/engine/match/355991.html

And they were therefore convinced that based on that great win back in 2009 the Dutch team must surely be quite good!

OK, back to this weeks game. I managed to convince 15 of my colleagues that it was a good idea to take a day off work and watch a game of cricket. But the catch was that I would first have to teach them about the game. So lunch time on Tuesday included a quick 20 minute presentation on cricket followed by a short game out on the lawn outside the office. 

They were now prepared for the big game.

On the day South Africa won the toss and decided to bat first. The innings got off to a bit of a slow start and the South Africans lost 2 early wickets. It was then up to Duminy and Ingram to get the innings back on track, which is exactly what they did. With the last 10 overs going for 144 runs the South Africans managed to end the innings in a great position with 341 for 3. 

The Dutch side then came in ad decided that they were going to go for it. They got off to a great start and were 36 without loss after 6 overs. They managed to maintain a fairly good momentum and at the end of the 40th over were on 199 for 6. South Africa at the same stage were 197 for 3. However having to score 143 runs from the last 10 overs proved too much for the Dutch side and they ended up all out for 258. South Africa won by 83 runs! 

But at the end of the day the result didn't matter. I now have 15 colleagues that know a little bit more about cricket, that have realised that beer plays a more important role than tea, and that would all happily spend another day in the sun next to a cricket field eating, drinking, chatting, and maybe even watching a bit of cricket.