Judgment Day

This is my last week at the Tribunal, so it’s fitting that today the court announced the judgment on my first case. During my first two months in The Hague, I worked on a prosecution team in the trial of the general who oversaw the siege of Sarajevo in 1994-1995. This morning, the court found him guilty of murder, terror and inhumane acts and sentenced him to 33 years in prison. I attended the court session and sat about twenty feet away from the defendant. The session was a little anticlimactic, and it’s strange to look someone in the eye with the knowledge that you helped send them to jail; but, knowing all that he’s done, I can’t think of anyone more deserving.

I don’t have much time to write, as I’m trying to finish my final paper for the semester. It’s been a good week this week, though. My trial team had a Sinterklaas/Hannukah party, and we’ll have a going away party in my honor during work on Friday. I also went on one more bike ride, this time to see the International Criminal Court. I went to a great international conference this week, where I heard speeches from one of the UN nuclear inspectors of Iraq, the head of the UN inquiry into Darfur, one of the judges of the International Court of Justice, and lots of other speakers. The Hague is a pretty good place to find these conferences. I found it interesting that multiple speakers commented on the grossly unfair and one-sided nature of the UN human rights inquiries into Israel. It’s refreshing to hear that from people who aren’t Jewish or American; it’s nice to know that others notice.

This week has many fun things ahead, including plans to hit the town with a Dutch water-polo team this weekend. (Long story...) My friend Isaiah arrives tomorrow, and then the two of us are off to Ireland and France. Woohoo! As such, this may be my last post, unless I somehow have a chance to recap our travels on the way back. I’ll be in LA on the 25th; it’s been a great few months, and I can’t wait to see everyone soon!

(P.S. I don't know why my font is being weird...)

Peace, Peace, and There is No Peace

Yesterday, I went with several other externs on a tour of the Peace Palace (Vredespaleis), home of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and Permanent Court of Arbitration. To answer a question often asked of me, the ICJ is the court that condemned Israel’s security barrier, not my court. That aside, the Peace Palace was an amazing place to walk around. Every room was filled with marble floors from Italy or tapestries from Japan or a hundred other priceless gifts. My personal favorite was the elephant tusks from the King of Siam, which probably wouldn’t fly as a gift these days. The main courtroom was called the “Hall of Justice,” though it disappointingly was not the home of the Justice League. I especially liked a room where every nation’s ambassador had his own chair with the seal of his country sown on the back. The building was beautiful; since we were prohibited from photographing the interior, the attached picture is the best I can do.

Last weekend, my court held its annual party for the staff in Grote Kerk, the oldest and largest church in The Hague. We had fun, though I’m not sure it was the best location. First, the interior was so massive that it felt empty even with 1,000 people dancing inside. Second, it was a little strange to be partying in a church, even if this particular church is apparently no longer “sanctified.” There were professional dancers strutting their stuff on platforms, and the bar stools were placed over sections of the floor that had people buried underneath. Ironically, I think the non-Christians found more disconcerting than anyone. At any rate, at some point I left the party and ended up hanging out with a bunch of random Germans in another bar. It was a strange night.

The next day, I went wine tasting in Breda, which is in the Dutch province of Noord Brabant, close to the border with Belgium. Breda was a charming little Dutch town, and it was fun to be somewhere different. I went with a group of friends, one of whom knew the owner of the wine store; he let us sample wines from all over the world and gave an explanation of the background and taste of each one. (Though I noticed none of the wines were from Holland; I guess Holland is too cold for good wine.) Afterwards we had some fantastic Indian food (I had a meal that included five vegetarian entrees), and headed back home.

Last night was the first time I’ve stayed home for the evening in a long time, due to my family visitors and due to the fact that everyone is starting to realize that the end of our time is near. On Monday night I went to an Italian restaurant for my first goodbye party for a friend. It was fun, but I can’t believe we’re all leaving Holland in less than two weeks... Madness! Anyway, happy Hannukah! (And happy Sinterklaas tomorrow!)

Antwerp & Amsterdam, Alstublieft

On an administrative note, please be aware that I no longer have my American phone number as of Tuesday. I can still be reached at 0031-617697163 or by email for the remainder of my time abroad.

On to other matters: this week my parents were here, so it’s been fun having family two weeks in a row. On their first night here, we went out for rijsttafels, an Indonesian dish that The Hague is famous for. (You get all sorts of fun food when you colonize other countries; it’s a great deal.) The meal is basically rice with a ton of different small dishes to mix in. It’s good stuff.

The next day, we went to Antwerp, Belgium, which is amazingly close by. The greatest sight in Antwerp is the Cathedral of Our Lady, the largest gothic church in the Low Countries. A German student gave us a free tour, highlighting the massive Rubens paintings that hang throughout the cathedral. We also saw the Steen, a castle from 1200 that sits along the river.

After we’d seen enough crucifixes in the center of town, we walked to the Jewish quarter, where they have the largest orthodox population in Europe. It’s a little incongruous to see ultra-Orthodox Jews speaking in Flemish; I’m not used to seeing them in Europe. We bought salami and had a fantastic kosher meat dinner (yay stuffed veal), so I was happy. The restaurant had no menu - you just went up to a counter and pointed out all the things you wanted. It was amazing.

After my parents spent a couple days in The Hague, we traveled up to Amsterdam on Friday. Some highlights of the day include: Dutch pancakes, the Rijksmuseum (state museum, best known for Rembrandt’s Night Watch), and the Filmmuseum (not much there, mainly just an exhibition by a Hungarian video-artist).

On Shabbat, we went to the massive Portuguese Synagogue, and we were invited to lunch by a family in the congregation. The father of the family had a fascinating background: he was raised going to a Catholic school in Suriname (though he was Jewish), learned Kung-Fu and cooking from his Chinese father, spent ten years studying to be a ninja in Japan, and moved to Israel and met his wife before coming to Holland. His wife showed us around the old Jewish neighborhood, including where the Nazis deported all the Jews and where signs of the pre-war Jewish life can still be found on some buildings. There are still many Jews in Holland, but certainly nothing like there used to be.

I went back to The Hague Saturday night, and the rest of the weekend was fun as well. It was so much fun that I’m too wiped out to write about it now, so I’ll post again soon about the rest of it.

Well It Must Be Thanksgiving

They don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in the Netherlands (no wonder the Pilgrims ditched this country...), but I took off a few days and had a very nice weekend nonetheless. On Thursday, my brother David became the first person to visit me in The Hague, and I took him around the neighborhood. Here are some of the things we covered:

In The Hague, we took a tour of the Ridderzaal, the 13^th century knights’ hall that was the first building in The Hague. Unfortunately, little of the original building remains; but the Queen still opens Parliament there every year, so it was an interesting place to see. We also saw the Mauritshuis, supposedly the best small art museum in the world. It’s best known for housing Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring.” That night, we had our Thanksgiving dinner at an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant in Scheveningen. Once we figured out how the ordering worked (which took us a while), it was great. The fish was good quality, too; it probably helps that the restaurant was a block from the North Sea.

On Saturday night, we returned to the center of town, where we had pizza at an Italian restaurant and mojitos at a Cuban bar. I felt that would be fairly representative of what Dutch cuisine had to offer.

In Amsterdam, we went to the Jewish Historical Museum, which had a lot of interesting things to see. (And its café was my first kosher restaurant in the Netherlands! It was dairy, but you have to start somewhere.) I always find it a little strange going through Jewish museums in Europe; it feels like I’m learning about some extinct culture (especially as they took a school group through the museum). This was thankfully mitigated by the knowledge that the Jewish community has rebounded, including at the Portuguese Synagogue next door. We also went to Anne Frank’s house, though I decided to wait in the café rather than go through the museum again.

That night, we went out for pannenkoeken (Dutch pancakes), which were delicious as usual. We also went to a concert of a couple alt-rock bands from Oregon. As happens surprisingly often, I liked the opening band better than the headliner, but they were both pretty good.

We also spent a day in Leiden, home to the most prestigious university in the Netherlands. It’s a nice place to walk around and has a medieval fortress at the center. It’s also where the Pilgrims lived before they left for the new world, so it was a little bit Thanksgiving-themed. We were there on the day of the “Arrival of Sinterklaas,” so we got to see a few “Black Petes” rappel down the side of the town hall. I’m just glad that I had someone with me to witness the little kids running around in blackface; it’s a sight...

On the way back from the train station this morning, after my brother departed, a police car pulled in front of me in the bike lane. Before I knew what was happening, a second squad car pulled up behind me. (That’s never a good sign.) They kept asking questions about my bike, and it took me a few minutes before they told me why they were detaining me. Apparently, they saw me on the security cameras at Central Station and thought that I picked the lock and stole my bike. I’m not sure how that happened – perhaps my forgetting where I parked my bike made it look like I was scanning for a bike to steal. At any rate, eventually they just took my information and let me go. They were very polite, and I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, but still a strange experience...

Dutch is Life

It’s been a good week, especially at work; I’ve been assigned to an investigation (to research what crimes we can charge), so that’s been fun. Yesterday, I watched a parade go by my apartment in honor of Sinterklaas. Though they celebrate Christmas in Holland, the bigger holiday is Sinterklaas, held on December 5^th. I didn’t take the attached picture, but that’s him in his bishop’s hat, along with his assistant Black Pete (Zwarte Piet). In fact, the entire parade was made up of men in blackface. I do believe it was the first time I’ve seen blackface when it wasn’t meant to be ironic; some of them were playing instruments and dancing around with jazz hands, as if straight out of a minstrel show. For a country that’s so progressive in so many ways, it was rather jaw-dropping to see how the Dutch think nothing of this practice.

Besides that parade, there wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary. Rather than recap the week, I thought I might note a few idiosyncrasies about life here in The Hague:

- I was on a roll for a while of getting in trouble every time I went to the supermarket. One time, I didn’t know you had to weigh your own fruit, so I held up the entire check-out line while someone ran back to do it for me. Another time, security surrounded me because I took a grocery bag without paying for it (as apparently you have to do here). I think I’m getting the hang of things now, though.

- The biggest difference about the Dutch grocery stores is that the food has no preservatives. Everything is probably healthier, but everything also goes bad very quickly. It’s already happened a number of times that I try to pour milk on my cereal and it comes out in chunks. Lovely. One time, I was eating a tuna sandwich, and a mealworm crawled out. I was so hungry that I almost finished the sandwich anyway, until someone convinced me not to.

- We don’t have a fire alarm in my office building. Instead, a woman’s voice politely asks over the loudspeaker for everyone to head outside. I’m pretty sure if that were our fire alarm in California, we all would have died a long time ago.

- “Cool Ranch” Doritos are instead called “Cool American.” (Do they not have ranch here?) The movie “Live Free or Die Hard” is called “Die Hard 4.0.” (I guess they didn’t appreciate the New Hampshire reference.) A few other things are tweaked like this, but not many.

- I am a big fan of the cheese here, and my favorite snack is a stroopwaffle. It’s basically a sandwich made out of waffles filled with caramel. So delicious...

- Every one of the interns must go through two rights of passage: first, everyone at some point falls down the stairs, since Dutch stairs are absurdly steep. (As of yesterday, I’ve fallen down the stairs three times, which my landlady tells me is a new record here.) Second, everyone at some point gets their bike tires stuck in the tram tracks, since for some reason they are the perfect width to fit in the track. (Everyone also gets their bikes stolen – a booming industry in the Netherlands – though thankfully my bike is too much of a piece of junk to steal.)

Amsterdam: Take 2

Okay, technically last night was my fifth time or so in Amsterdam, but only my second time going out there for the night. And it was the first time I hitched a ride there with friends and didn’t have to take the train, so that was exciting. Squeezing six people into the car seemed like a good idea at the time, until we remembered how small the Dutch cars are. Even my civic would have been a step up. But hey, we got there.

Nothing too crazy happened last night – first, we went to a club where a friend was having a birthday party. (Always fun to have your name on “no cover charge” list.) The club was not very exciting – very expensive drinks, bad music, and a bunch of strange Dutch people who kept hitting on all my female friends (and asking me which of the girls were mine). We didn’t stay long. The second club was a little better; I think it’s a movie theater that turns into a club late at night. Each room had a different theme to it – one was hip-hip, one was karaoke, etc. It was a little more of a young tourist crowd (maybe the first time I’ve ever felt old at a club) and the floor was so sticky that I had to pull my feet off of it, but we still had a good time.

After the clubs, we went to an Irish bar, for the benefit of the Irishwomen in our group. (And I was getting myself acclimated, since I just made plans to go to Dublin!) Then we went to some Arab falafel store as an end to the evening. It was a fun evening out; the only time we entered the Amsterdam Central Police Station was to use their bathroom, so that’s always good. (I’m still not a big fan of the street-urinals.)

The most amusing moment of the night for me was when a Dutch friend suggested that we meet someone at what sounded like a “kike shop.” I was fairly certain he wasn’t aware of the slur, but it took me a good five minutes to work out that he was saying “kijkshop,” a tchotchke-catalogue type store. Good to know.

In The Hague, we’ve been hearing weather advisories all week. This weekend was apparently the worst storm in the Netherlands since 1953. Winds here have been about 60 mph (which makes biking to work take a lot longer than usual). So, we’ve been staying indoors a lot this week, but at least it’s getting me prepped for Chicago winter...

What would you buy if you were bored? Uh... a jar of calf's foot jelly.

First, my news: I have a job! In the fall of 2008, I’m moving to Chicago! I’m going to be a staff clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. (Basically, I’ll be helping to write case opinions in concert with the judges.) I’m really excited about the job, and I think it’ll be good to be back in the Midwest. I’ll miss California (in fact, this cold I have from biking in the rain is making me miss it right now...), but I’m pretty excited to see what comes next.

I found out about the job while I was in England for the weekend, and receiving that email definitely added to the fun. I went to England to meet up with a couple of friends from the states and crash on their hotel floor, which was surprisingly comfortable. Some observations from the weekend:

- We visited the Tower of London, where I ended up running into one of the other interns from The Hague. The tower had lots of fun stuff from famous people who were locked up there, many of whom carved on the walls in desperation 500 or so years ago. Across from the former cells, we saw the crown jewels and some of the largest diamonds in the world. It’s an interesting contrast.

- In further contrast, we also went to Windsor Castle, one of the queen’s official residences. (I live down the street from an official residence for the queen here, but Windsor was somewhat more impressive.) The castle was the home of all the monarchs who locked their family members in the Tower of London, so it provided a good balance to the day.

- Everything in London is absurdly expensive. The price would be normal if listed in dollars, but of course it isn’t. For example, a beer at the pub was 4 pounds ($8). On the other hand, the beer was called Old Speckled Hen, so at least it was funny.

- We went to the British Museum, which had a lot of amazing artifacts, including the Rosetta Stone and other items pilfered from all corners of the globe. It was pretty amazing, except that unfortunately the Holy Land section was closed. (Just like the British to keep us out of the Holy Land...)

- We went to see a show in a West End theater, which was fun. The show was called “The 39 Steps,” a comedic spoof of the classic Hitchcock film. It was a very British sense of humor, very tongue in cheek. I can’t say it’s the best play I’ve seen, but it was a unique cultural experience.

- We kept looking in the wrong direction when we crossed the street; the British system takes some getting used to. I definitely almost walked in front of a double-decker bus a couple of times, and you’d think I would’ve seen those coming. On most of the street corners, they’ve written “Look Left” or “Look Right” in front of the curb. It kind of makes you wonder what the pedestrian mortality rate had to be in order for them to write that everywhere. (Or it makes me wonder, as I’m just that morbid.)

- We found a vegetarian Thai all-you-can-eat buffet. I’ve never been so happy. (Finding out about the job made me happy too, but mainly in the sense that now I’ll have money for more buffets.)

The trip was much easier than my previous international travel. I flew out of Rotterdam airport, which is closer to me and only has a couple of gates. The flight was literally a half-hour; they played an episode of “Friends,” and then we were in England. This is the first time I’ve even been on an international flight that didn’t either land or take off in the U.S. or Israel. I was literally the only non-EU person on the flight. When we arrived at passport control, every single person from the plane got in one line except for me; I walked straight up to my own counter. It pays to be an American.