As of today, I’ve been in the Hague for exactly one month. I can’t believe I’m already 1/3 of the way through the summer! At the same time, it’s hard to believe that I’ve ONLY been here for a month. I fell into personal, professional, and social routines so easily and immediately that I feel like I’ve been here much longer.

That being said, this is going to be my first real weekend in the Hague! The only other weekend I was here (the weekend after I arrived), I worked all day Saturday and then was still so tired the next day that I didn’t do much except hang out at the beach. I still haven’t seen a lot of the city; I think Dad managed to see more in his one afternoon here than I have seen in the last month! Last night I was reading through the Lonely Planet’s couple of pages on the Hague and realized that very little of its contents looked familiar to me. Clearly, I need to take my bike and venture a little further afield!

I’m generally enjoying the Hague; my only major complaint (and that of everyone else here) is that the weather sucks. Today the sun is out, but that’s unfortunately the exception rather than the rule. It’s warmed up slightly, meaning that the temperature has reached its likely peak of highs in the low- to mid-60’s. Fingers crossed for nice weather this weekend so I can spend a bit more time on the beach!

In terms of other aspects of European life, I’m gradually starting to figure things out. I succeeded in opening a Dutch bank account last week (though I am still figuring out how to actually put money in it). I got my washing machine properly hooked up to the faucet of my bathroom sink (though now I don’t know how to remove it, so I’m now brushing my teeth in the kitchen). I am still experimenting with the settings of the washing machine – clothes often come out, paradoxically, either too wet (and often still a bit soapy) or too dry; ultimately, I have to do some serious wringing out of everything that goes through, so clearly the spin cycle leaves something to be desired. I think I’m going to continue taking a few articles of clothing to be professionally laundered just so I can be assured that they’re truly clean (not convinced anything is; it just smells better) and not wrinkled and/or oddly stressed out as a result of all the wringing! I think laundry is really the only thing I truly miss about the U.S. at this point.

My internship continues to be great. The other interns are 100% awesome – we’re a fun-loving group of people who also happen to be very smart and committed to the work that the Tribunal is doing. I look forward to lunch every day when we can hang out in the cafeteria (or on rare nice days, on the terrace) and just chat about things. We’re still making lots of plans for travel and other activities; for example, tomorrow night a group of us is going to Delft for dinner at a tavern that is like a more authentic version of Medieval Times, complete with rentable costumes. (Pictures absolutely forthcoming.) Every Monday morning is a time for catching up on everyone’s travels over the past weekend. I’ve gone to three countries over the past three weekends, and I am not alone in that record!

The other Tribunal employees are really wonderful as well. We interns are truly treated like lawyers; sometimes we have “grunt” work to do, but it’s work that the lawyers are doing too, so I don’t find it at all annoying. Everything, no matter how small or how tedious, is an important part of the work to bring Mladic to justice and help to provide some sense of closure to the victims as well. All of the attorneys I’ve worked with are warm, friendly, and good-natured, and they’re not afraid to give us real work. I got to draft another motion on Monday, which was pretty great. I’ve been doing a wide variety of work, both a combination of proactive (scheduled) and reactive tasks depending on the needs of the team.

I think this is the first time I’ve truly had no complaints about a job. Teaching was obviously tremendously rewarding and challenging in a good way, but it was also emotionally draining and exhausting. Working for the DC school system was a lot like the experience here except that there were so many issues of management and very little structure, so it was very frustrating. Consulting was just boring; I was under-utilized and uninterested in the work I did receive. Here, I’m learning a great deal about the Balkans conflict (which I’ve wanted to do for years), getting an inside look at the international justice system, and applying a lot of my innate and learned skills in order to further work that I fully believe in. I feel very, very lucky.

I’ve now been here in Den Haag for seven whole days. I feel much more at home than I did on Sunday even though I still haven’t quite settled in or figured everything out. Part of this is because I have some really awesome fellow interns who are struggling through the same stuff and are as fun-loving as my fellow LawHoos!

Thursday after work a group of us went to a bar near my house for an outdoor happy hour that ended up lasting about seven hours (for some of us). I introduced We Will Rock You (shout-out to World at Play!), and we tried a number of different kinds of beer. I even went on the darker end of the spectrum, which is NOT normally my thing! See pics below:

 

One thing I’ve learned is that as hard as it often is for law students not to talk about law, it’s even harder for ICTY employees not to talk about work. This is partially because we interns bombard them with questions; there is just so much that we want/need to understand about how the tribunal works, where things are with the various cases we’re working on, and about the Balkans more generally. (I think so far I am the most knowledgeable intern when it comes to what happened during the 90’s and what it’s like now, but there is still a TON that I don’t know.) My case has of course prompted a lot of conversation this week thanks first to the significance of the opening statements and second to the decision to postpone indefinitely while the disclosure stuff is sorted out. It’s all very interesting, but at some point it’s also important for someone to cut off the work talk! (I did that once or twice, but I think we only managed to stay off-topic for a few minutes each time.)

Here’s a picture of the seemingly ever-present bitte ballen (bitter balls), the mysterious “meatballs” with an unidentifiable, liquidy meat-based substance inside. They are the ultimate Dutch bar food:

Anyway, yesterday several of us had the first of a series of computer program trainings, and this one was slated to take all day. We ended up with a bit over an hour for lunch, so we headed over to the Fred (the street that’s actually called Frederik Hendriklaan and home to lots of shops) in search of a deli we’d heard could make excellent sandwiches. We found it and felt quite overwhelmed: aside from being a full-service deli, they had several display cases full of lots of different foods. I ended up getting a pepper stuff with a gigantic veal meatball and some stir fried vegetables. After about 15 minutes, we all had our food and headed out to a park across the street to picnic. The sun was out, and the air was warmer than it had been the rest of the week, so it was a really nice thing to do in the middle of the day.

Our training ended up only lasting until about 1:45, and since we weren’t expected back at work (my supervisor at least had dismissed us until Monday, and we knew we didn’t have any work to do), several of us picked up a bottle of prosecco and went back to the park for a little mid-afternoon refresher. Sitting there in the grass and the sun while watching two little Dutch kids attempt to play tennis with their grandfather was just the most relaxing way to spend a Friday afternoon!

When the weather started turning colder and cloudier, we headed back to my apartment and hung out there for a few more hours. On the way, we stopped into one of the cheese shops on the Fred. If you’ve ever been to Spain and seen the shops with a hundred legs of ham hanging from the ceiling, this was kind of like that, except with huge wheels of cheese. We sampled a few, including a truffle oil cheese that was absolutely heavenly but cost 30 euros per kilo! (our little sample slices must have been worth at least 50 cents!) We ended up buying a basic Dutch cheese (I don’t know the name) that was very mild and paired well with some crackers and wine that we also brought home.

Around 6:45 we walked a few blocks over to the cafe where I’d eaten lunch with Rachel and Linda on Sunday. Once a month, a local Expat organization puts on something called Friday Expat Drinks (FED) at a different venue and offers free drinks and finger food if you arrive before a certain time. We didn’t see anyone we knew and weren’t particularly impressed with the drinks, but it was an interesting event to check out. Most of the people there actually seemed to be something other than American, which just goes to show how diverse the Hague is.

Next weekend the plan is for a bunch of us to go to Oslo. We have a three-day weekend (Monday the 28th is a holiday) and spent some time yesterday just looking to see what was the cheapest flight we could find. Oslo won out by about $70. We have decided that we will try to plan our travel like this for the rest of the summer – wherever the price blows us! We’re all quite excited.

I’m heading to bed now after a long day at work (yes, it’s Saturday). We’re working through some of the stuff related to the trial delay. It’s not how I envisioned spending my first Saturday here, but it’s interesting to continue getting a very detailed, inside look at how a huge trial like this actually works. The sheer amount of documentation and information involved is nothing short of incredible.

Hopefully the nice weather will continue tomorrow – I’m looking forward to a leisurely day!

Today was obviously a pretty important day here in the Hague.

I arrived at the ICTY around 8:30 (earlier than usual) and, as directed, used the back entrance so as not to be part of the managed chaos at the front entrance. As I approached the gate, I realized that the police had stopped traffic on the street, and I could hear the sound of approaching sirens. Just as I was walking through the gate, two cars pulled through: one police car with the siren and lights on, and a black van. After consulting with others, we’ve concluded there is a good chance that this was Mladić arriving. Talk about timing!

A few of us went down to the second floor terrace to get a closer look at the various tv crews and protesters in front of the building.

It wasn’t possible for us to watch the trial in the actual courtroom (seating is limited for regular trials, let alone for a big one like this, and priority goes to victims and others who have a personal connection to the case). Fortunately, we were able to watch via live stream and joined a few other people from OTP in a conference room.

It wasn’t immediately apparent to us which one Mladić was – I had missed the very beginning of the proceedings, and none of the various people the cameras showed made me think of someone capable of so much hatred and murder. (I also had just seen a picture of Mladić from shortly after his capture, and no one matched that picture.) It turns out that Mladić was someone they’d shown several times before I asked about him. As the pictures show, he was wearing a gray suit – and I swear, he could have been a law professor. There were times when he’d take off his glasses and hold them with a pensive look on his face exactly like a typical academic. I wish we could have watched a split screen with both him and the prosecutor so that we could have watched his reactions more closely. In general, he looked pretty calm and confident… perhaps a bit TOO confident.

The lucky (?) timing I might have had in terms of seeing him arrive did not continue long enough to let me catch the first few minutes of the trial, so I missed the threatening gesture he apparently made towards some members of the public audience. I did, however, see Judge Orie remark on it when court resumed after the first break; he said there had been inappropriate interaction between Mladić and the audience (he did not place blame on who initiated) and that if it continued he would have to do something about it. I saw nothing else happen.

I did see Mladić smile at one point. I don’t remember what the prosecutor was talking about at that moment, but it was enough that I gasped out loud at the impropriety of that action. It was a very “yes, I killed all those people, and I’m proud of it” kind of look.

Court recessed around 1:30 and resumes again tomorrow at 9. Tomorrow the rest of the opening statement concerns Srebrenica, so it should be a particularly memorable couple of hours.

Finally, these people were protesting outside the Tribunal today:

They were holding various signs with country flags on them and the words “also guilty” – I think I saw Germany, the UK, and the Netherlands. (We were wondering why the US was not among them.) Not entirely sure what that’s all about.

More tomorrow!

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.