My dear friends,
The last few weeks have been heavy reading, and I hope you’ll forgive me while I work through my emotions and grief. I can promise you, it won’t be the last you’ll hear from me, but life goes on, and I cannot allow myself to fall behind.
Way back when, the main reason for my idle scribblings were to document what we’ve been up to on a month to month basis, and I have spent the better part of the week trying to do a write up about our weekend in Switzerland. Well, in the event I completely forget my thoughts, and not show you the photos from a tourist stop over, I may as well just shut this down.
Last weekend was the annual friendly cricket tournament which takes place in Winterthur in Switzerland. Winterthur is in the Zurich canton, and by and large, a largely dominant German Swiss area.
Yes. Cricket. In Europe.
I don’t mind. I will take just about any excuse to spend a bit of time with my family and friends in the sun, plus this tournament meant I got to ‘travel’. So as I stepped off my SA flight on Friday, we drove across to Winterthur for “Golden Duck 8-a side” tournament, of which the Strasbourg Strollers were invited to play in.
The Strollers are a wonderfully social group of mostly ex-pat and immigrant players, who get together over spring and early autumn for cricket matches. (Although we even have a real Frenchman in the team; how cool is that?) Anton is on the committee, and is a very enthusiastic member. Last weekend we were a little on the short side of players, so Anton roped in the help of a young Capetonian who is here visiting Strasbourg friends, and together with a handful of others, plus some players borrowed from Winterthur, we headed to Winterthur, Switzerland, for a spot of sun, cricket and new experiences.
Over two days, the Strollers played 3 games. The format is very much indoor cricket style- 12 overs, 6 out of 8 players have to bowl, and if any batsmen reaches 40 runs, they have to retire. As a result, the organisers can fit in 8 or 9 matches over two days.
After getting a hiding in the first match that the Strollers played, and me looking rather pink from unexpected sun, we departed to head to our hotel room to freshen up, after which 6 players, 2 wives and 3 kids were planning on hitting Zurich for sightseeing and dinner.
We were all booked into hotels near the Zurich airport, and I have a rule that nothing good comes from hotels and food near the airport, hence we planned to go into Zurich itself for dinner and sightseeing.
WORST IDEA. Everything was wrong about it. Expensive train tickets– parking a car might have been cheaper, if we knew we could find parking; trying to buy train tickets, waiting for the trains…. I had a sense of being on the TV series Amazing Race, with handicaps.
Once we got into Zurich city around 19h30, we quickly headed up Bahnhofstrasse in anticipation of finding a family eatery. No such luck. Possibly worse, was the lack of roaming data on our smartphones, so we couldn’t even Google restaurants that would suit us. We wondered around aimlessly for 30 minutes, all the while young girls slowly wilting (it was still warm); a clutch of young men looking to watch the Champions League Final, and 5 older adults needing to eat.
In the end, the only photos and memories I have of Zurich are of the train station, Beth asleep on my lap while eating the most inedible Spaghetti Pesto at the diviest restaurant that wasn’t MacDonalds, and the most horrendous of all- paying up to 8 Swiss Francs for 100ml of wine. I didn’t even bother. We found the service staff quite unhelpful, and as everyone says about Switzerland, everything is VERY expensive. I guess, if I am practical about it, if we had planned more, had a better idea of what to see and do, we might have been better off. That said, I am not sure I am in a rush to head back to Zurich to afford ourselves, and them, a better chance.
The Strollers had an early start on Sunday, and at the early hour were in need of a scorer. I have a vague memory of keeping score at U14 cricket at High School, and since I’ve actually played a spot of indoor cricket, I put my hand up. Anton seems to think I am now the official score keeper for the rest of the season. Sadly, the team they played were a little more practised, and the Strollers came very much second. As a result, they had to return to the field immediately for their last-place play off, which they won convincingly. The young South African boy who we had taken along slogged a couple of impressive boundaries, and helped to pass the required runs with an over to spare.
After lunch and showers, the Strollers set off back for Strasbourg, but not without a detour to see the Rhine Falls which we discovered were 30 minute drive away.
As the name suggests, this cascade of water is on the Rhine River, and it is the largest ‘plain’ waterfall in Europe. It’s found alongside the German Swiss border. The High Rhine (Hochrhein) emerges from Lake Constance which can be found in between Austria, Switzerland and Germany. From the Untersee, it appears to flow uphill to the town Schaffhausen, where it crashes over centuries old ice-age created rock formations, and then apparently flows west, into Germany. Quite simply put, it marks the beginning of the Rhine, which eventually empties out into the North Sea in the Netherlands.
Here, under the watchful eye of the Schloss Laufen, tourists can pay to walk down to where the water rages across rocks, spray furiously beating the air. It really and truly is a force to be reckoned with. The Falls are small in comparison to the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, but I think being able to be as close as we were makes them seem more majestic and inspiring than I imagined they would be. At the bottom, the water pools into stillness, before the Rhine continues on its path across Europe.
It was a lovely unexpected stop-over at the end of a weekend away- the perfect distraction for me. Thanks to the young cricketers who researched what-to-do! We would have missed it had you not made the suggestion.
Anyway, that was the first of what I’m hoping is going to be a fun summer.
Sending love to you all, I am missing you all desperately. Hugs and kisses, love Me. Xxx
Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals 