Well honestly I don’t know how a first day of work could possibly go much better. And let’s not forget: I’ve wanted to work for the UN for a solid decade now. (Kofi Annan himself knows that!)

I slept well on my first night in Den Haag and woke up at 7:30 to another bright morning. I arrived at the ICTY at 8:55 but had a brief adventure upon being told that the interns were due to report to the ICTY Administration building, which was about a block away. I walked in just as the intern coordinator arrived to move us to a cafeteria for some briefing. Amazingly, almost everyone in this week’s group is American or Canadian – apparently that’s something to do with our summer schedules. I think about 25 of us started today, and I know another group starts next Monday as well.

By 11:00 I had made some new friends, found a fellow W&M alumna, and acquired my ICTY ID badge. The picture on it is literally me in front of the UN flag. How surreal!

We trooped back over to the main building and had some fun learning how to “beep” our ID cards. (The sign actually says “please beep your card”.) To get from the outside of the building up to my office requires three beeps: one at the front gate, one in the lobby, and one at the entrance to our hallway of offices. Talk about secure!

Anyway, it was while we were waiting in the lobby that we had our celebrity sighting. A girl next to me pointed to a group of men in black suits standing several feet away from us and whispered, “did anyone else here watch ER? Is that one of the doctors?” I looked over, and sure enough, there was Goran Visnjic, aka Luka Kovac! Now, my mom and I have always been big, big fans of his – I mean, he’s Croatian! (He’s even led Matt Lauer through Dubronik on one of his international trips.) I tried to effect a casual attitude as I whipped out my iPhone and strode over a few feet for a better picture vantage point. Unfortunately, he moved his hand just as I snapped the photo, so the one from my phone only shows the top half of his face. I wasn’t willing to try again, but I was willing to stand there and stare to the extent possible given that I was still in a conversation with some people.

Next on our introductory tour was the health wing of the basement. The ICTY has its own doctor and nurse as well as a host of interesting health documents, like a pamphlet about ways to exercise if you’re lazy (one suggestion: march in place while brushing your teeth), a brochure on tips for dealing with burnout, and a briefing on office ergonomics (they told us to take it seriously and gave all of us a copy).

Speaking of exercise, the Office of the Prosecutor is on the third (Americans, read fourth) floor of the building, so as we climbed the stairs we all decided there was no need to join a gym. Once we arrived at the top, we went into a small conference room and got our Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) briefing, which was pretty simple: confidentiality is supremely important (which means I can’t really tell you anything except which case I’m on), particularly this week because the BBC is here filming footage to make a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the ICTY.

Once briefed, we were sorted into our groups and went off to meet our supervisors. I was thrilled – thrilled – to be put on the Mladic case. Now, some of you might at least recognize that name. Mladic is the one who was only caught recently and was responsible for Srebrenica, among other things. As one of our supervisors said: this case is one of the four biggest in the world right now. (Karadzic’s trial is ending; Charles Taylor’s just ended; and the ICTR is about to try its last defendant.) Look him up: Ratko Mladic. His trial is scheduled to start on Wednesday, so we have truly perfect timing.

We settled into one of the intern work rooms, where about 15 of us have desks. In contrast to our group, none of the veteran interns is from North America. Most are European, including several who were speaking BCS (the official term for the language spoken in the former Yugoslavia – Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian). I have to say BCS here because I’m not sure which country they’re from. I sat there chuckling to myself as they spoke to each other in BCS; at one point I heard the word “rakija” several times, which suggests to me they were talking about weekend activities. J I also smiled when I heard “hajde”, the word I have tattooed on my wrist!

There are two other new interns on the Mladic case with me (along with some older interns), and we spent the afternoon getting acquainted with the case. We got copies of the indictment, prosecution brief, and defense brief – all of which are pretty long, so we didn’t finish reading everything. We got an actual assignment right at 5:30 and spent another 45 minutes or so combing through a few documents looking for things (that’s all I can say – it sounds boring but wasn’t!).

I got to see Goran Visnjic one more time on my way out. He was in the lobby again, with a lot more people around him and some photographers. Since this time he was clearly dealing with some press, I felt no shame in getting out my camera and taking his picture. (This one is blurry because I turned off my flash – I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.) He smiled at me at one point while I stood there, and I swear I felt weak at the knees. Move over, Johnny Depp – Goran Visnjic just displaced you at the top of my list.

I’m now back in my apartment enjoying schwarma and a beer after going on a little exploration around my neighborhood. Day #2 in the Hague/Day #1 at the ICTY = epic win. This is going to be an awesome summer!

Dear readers,

Today marks not only my 27th birthday but also the first day of the three months I will spend working this summer in Den Haag (the Hague), the Netherlands. I can’t believe that I’m here already; the last two weeks have been an utter whirlwind of final exams, packing, and finally, travel.

I’ve spent two summers in Europe prior this one but have never been away for more than eight weeks; this summer I will be here for three whole months – which to me is pretty much as good as it gets. Tomorrow I start work at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), where I will be working in the Office of the Prosecutor. I don’t know yet what exactly I’ll be doing, but it will, in at least a general sense, involve prosecuting some of the worst war criminals from the breakup of the former Yugoslavia during the 1990’s. Given my Croatian ancestry and my experiences working in four Balkan countries last summer, this experience is highly personal for me, and I am really looking forward to my first real legal job dealing with human rights.

I landed in Amsterdam this morning and knew even before arriving at the gate that I was in Holland. While heading towards the gate, I could see a windmill, several bikers, and a canal. I’ve never been to the Netherlands before, and sadly Dutch is not one of the languages I’ve studied, so I am sure that this summer will involve a decent number of good stories – and today was no exception.

You can take a train straight from the Amsterdam airport to the Hague, so I grabbed my two large bags and headed towards the train station. After some frustrating, failed negotiations with the automatic ticket sellers, I made my may to a window and got a ticket. I scrutinized the ticket looking for a hint of what time the train left or at least what platform it would leave from and found neither. Since none of the platforms were labeled with that specifically, I chose a random elevator and headed down to the tracks. I had perfect timing: a train was just pulling up bearing the sign “Den Haag Centraal”, so I heaved my bags on board and settled into a seat. I spent the next 20 minutes convinced I had somehow messed up; the train was going TOWARDS Amsterdam, which despite my limited grasp of Dutch geography struck me as incorrect. When we arrived at the main terminal, I grabbed my bags again and asked someone on the platform about getting to the Hague. Apparently, I did have the right train – but for whatever reason it went to Amsterdam before turning around and going to the Hague. Crisis averted!

I was very blessed to have family with me today – my cousin Rachel and her mom came to spend my birthday with me as part of Rachel’s good-bye Europe tour after a semester in France. It was reassuring to have people with me as I found my way to my apartment, unpacked, figured out how to turn on the hot water heater, etc. We got to spend eight hours together, and it was wonderful!

I’m renting a small flat that’s about a 10-minute walk from the ICTY in the northwest part of the city. The neighborhood is absolutely charming – it reminds me most of Notting Hill, but it has hints of Georgetown and the Fan as well. My building is on a narrow street lined with simple yet stately brown brick houses, and my flt’s up on the second floor overlooking the street. It could almost be a scene from Alfred HItchcock’s “Rear Window” – I can see into the apartments and terraces of everyone across! I have one combination living/dining/bed room, a small bath, and a small kitchen – just enough space for one person.

After I got cleaned up a bit after my flight, the three of us headed off to explore the area. We first made our way in the general direction of the ICTY and managed to find it without any trouble. I think it’s still surreal that I will finally get to work for the UN after a decade of hoping, and the sight of the UN flag flying in front of the ICTY further heightened that for me.

We found an outdoor cafe next to a nearby art museum and enjoyed a late lunch while watching little kids play in the park and thirsty Dutch yuppies enjoy a wine tasting going on just next to us. (We thought about joining in but decided that my truly incredible lack of jet lag probably had its limits.) After that we headed back to the apartment for a some unpacking and research (Rachel did some much-needed research on the public transit system here), and then we set off to try our luck at taking the tram. A short while later we found ourselves back at the train station and set off in search of a popular shopping/walking district. When we found it, I really started to feel like I was back in Europe. The quaint shops (or not so quaint, in the case of the sex shops) lining the pedestrian-only streets felt very familiar to me. We ended up grabbing drinks and some tapas at an outdoor cafe in a big plaza, and our very nice waitress brought us strawberry cheesecake shooters to celebrate my birthday – YUM.

After dinner (already 8:30 at that point) I said good-bye to Rachel and Linda and gamely tried to make it back here via trams. This proved to be a highly prolonged endeavor, as I was essentially removed from the first tram (I was trying to explain where I was going so I could pay, and they thought I was asking for tourist advice) and then ended up on the right one only to get off too early and end up over a mile away from where I needed to be! Thank God I had bought a map a few hours before – it’s hard enough even with the map given the (currently) unpronounceable Dutch words involved, but without it I would have been utterly lost. After an hour of frustrated wandering I finally made it back here via a different route, through which I discovered some nearby eateries and a bar just steps away from my door that seems like quite the cozy neighborhood hangout.

And now, ladies and gents, it’s time for me to FINALLY go to sleep before starting work at the ICTY tomorrow! Tune in tomorrow for an update on what I’ll be working on this summer.