Around the canals

The World's Only Floating Flower Market!

For sale at the flower market:

I won't be bringing any of these home to Phoenix, Mom and Dad

Crooked buildings

Lunch with Riley in Amsterdam

Such a cute little spot, right on the Singel canal, about five minutes from the Amsterdam Centraal train station. It was one of the few spots that we were sure was actually a café, not a coffee shop.

Autumn doorways

Note the grapes hanging from the boughs

Friday night Crepes

Menacing puddles

As I was chatting with my parents on Skype tonight, my dad was entering the daily precipitation value for Gold Canyon (0.0 inches) into a meteorological website he contributes to. That amount is in stark comparison to the buckets that dumped on the city here today.

Portland, Oregon gets an average rainfall of around 37 inches or so (right Keeg?), and the Hague gets an average of 31 inches. I'm used to rain, don't mind it even when my shoes make squishing noises. The problem with every single one of those 31 inches is that the average elevation in the Hague is a measly 3 feet above sea level, with a system of dikes crisscrossing the city to pump water back out to Scheveningen. I'm convinced after my waterlogged and grumpy trek home, through a veritable minefield of bottomless puddles, that this entire city is about one solid rainstorm away from being flooded.

If you need convincing, check out the movie De Storm.

Di

I had brunch this morning with a coworker to celebrate her birthday; she has lived in the Hague for almost a year now, knows all of the little nooks to go to, and suggested we go to the tea room at Scallywags. The owners are apparently obsessed with the late Princess Diana, and so the entire place was plastered with her face. The menus, tabletops, paintings on the walls and tea towels all bore her likeness.

Mom, I am taking you there when you visit!

Autumn

Today was the first day that I was actually quite cold on my ride to work. I suppose the time has come for me to stop wearing ballerina flats and perhaps think about a woolly sock instead. Fall is definitely here in the Hague - I piled an extra blanket on my bed last night, turned on the steam heating, and slept so well it was positively painful to extricate myself from bed this morning. Shadows are getting longer and longer...

I have been swamped with work this last week and am thrilled that the weekend is around the corner. There is a good chance I will be working at least one day this weekend, but have made plans to socialize a bit to make up for it. If the weather isn't completely wretched, I will try to make a solitary trip around the city, snapping photos.

Miss you all!

Dinner with the girls

My neighbor was staring at us - we returned the favor

Galina!

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the delay in writing - it has been quite the busy time, peppered with periods of no internet access at home. I can't believe how dependent I am on technology that is taken for granted.

This past weekend I was in a witness proofing for several hours, and it was incredibly interesting material covering the run-up to Srebrenica and the shelling campaign in Sarajevo. As I sit at my desk now, working away, I am listening to the witness' testimony and recognizing the aspects we have been attempting to highlight in the Prosecution's case thus far. My stomach is in knots every time the Defense references the Information Report, which was written and submitted by yours truly.

In even more exciting news, my dear dear friend Galina is currently visiting me for a few days! It is just wonderful seeing her again - we met in undergrad, and the last time I saw her was in Boston on a wintry night when I was in the throes of law school stress. We're having a fantastic time catching up and chatting. She wandered through Haarlem yesterday, also visiting the St. Bavo Cathedral which I took photos of, and was lucky enough to hear the organ actually being played (I will have to ensure that takes place when Dad is visiting, one way or another). She is coming for lunch to the Tribunal today, and if the timing is right we will watch my trial taking place from the public gallery.

Photos will follow!

Very cool for PoliSci nerds like me

I checked out the book Waging Modern War by General Wesley Clark from the ICTY library today.

Opened it to the title page...

And found his signature there, in blue ballpoint pen.

He should have signed it "Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, all-around Silver Fox."

"Long live absolute world peace."

I have the day off tomorrow in observation of the United Nations' 2009 International Day of Peace. Especially in light of Justice Goldstone's findings that have been reported on as of late, I hope the day can be observed in some small way.

Visit - http://www.internationaldayofpeace.org/