Exciting News!!!

On Monday, I received some exciting news - I have an internship with the United Nations!!

I applied for this about 3 weeks ago - normally you have to apply in August, but they had some spots left open, so I spent a frantic week organising references and various documents, and now it's all paid off!!

So, I will be in the Hague, in the Netherlands, from January 8th to June 29th 2007. I will be working with the Office of the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) - so, basically, I will be helping to prosecute war criminals, for the genocide that occurred in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.

This is a really amazing and exciting opportunity - I will be highly involved in a very practical way, helping to interview witnesses, draft documents, go to court - it will be awesome experience in how an international criminal tribunal actually works, and I will be helping to achieve something big!!

So, that's where I'll be next year, getting experience with the United Nations!! So I'm currently looking for places to live in the Hague, in between studying and socialising!!

If you want to know a little bit more about it, then click on the link to the left, called 'The ICTY' - that will take you to their webpage, I'm doing a Regular Internship. Or just e-mail me, and I'll gladly tell you all about it - I'm so excited!!!

Skagen, Santa and Study

Ok, there have been some interesting and more 'cultural' experiences over the past few weeks, for those of you who have been worried that I spend my life partying and drinking!!

- at one stage, my life story was going to be called 'Lost somewhere in Denmark with Italians', as I spent 2 days of last weekend (Friday and Monday) in a hired car with my lovely Italian friends, driving around the coast of Jutland, the island of Denmark where Aarhus is situated. On the Friday, we were planning to get to Skagen, which is the point at the top where the North and the Baltic Sea meet, but after driving to the West Coast to find amber, we realised that we would not make Skagen by sunset (around 4pm here!!), so we stopped at the nearest beach to enjoy the atmosphere, We then drove to Aalborg, the 3rd largest city in Denmark, and renowned for its party atmosphere, but we only stopped for an hour, before driving home!!







- On Monday, then, we hired a car again, and set out for Skagen, stopping along the way at historic Randers, Lokken, the Danish Ibiza (although not so much at the moment, it being winter and all!!), the Moving Dune, which supposedly moves 50 metres per year, and then finally to Skagen, again at dark, so we didn't see it in its glory, but it was still nice!! I realised that beaches don't excite me as much, perhaps because I've grown up with them, but it was good to see the Danish countryside and coastline, and watching 3 Italian guys headbanging to AC/DC while driving through Denmark is definitely a memorable experience!!




Our travelling crew - me, Fabrizio, and our trusty driver, Andrea.


- Friday night was an exciting Christmas experience - the Santa parade!! Santa arrived on a boat in the harbour, then paraded through the town with marching bands, fire engines and helpers giving out lollies and icecream - it was great!! They lit the starry Christmas lights in the main street, and had fireworks (although no OH & S in this country - we were across from the building with the fireworks, and kept seeing bits of flame land on people!!) I'm really looking forward to all the cold Christmassy things here - ice skating, Christmas markets - Europe really goes all out with Christmas lights and decorations, which is nice when it's so cold and dark so early!!






- I have finally started studying in earnest, as I have my first oral exam in a week - basically, we know the questions, then we pick one out of a hat when we arrive, and speak for 15 minutes on that!! So I'm busily learning International Copyright in preparation for this, and limiting my partying somewhat to only one weekend night of dancing in the city! I am becoming so dedicated (and also last minute!) that I didn't go to Latvia as planned this weekend, staying home to study and see Santa!!

So that will be my next few weeks, studying, as I have an exam on the 18th and the 21st also. Dad and Odette will be coming to visit in a couple of weeks, which will be really nice, and then I will spend Christmas in Leeds, England, with Charlotte and her family, and New Year's Eve back here in Aarhus!

Halloween, Snow and Vikings

Again, my life is a whirlwind of parties and fun, however with exams looming eerily close (I have one on the 4th of December), the real world of study is closing in!!

Halloween was lots of fun - although not really celebrated in Denmark, like Australia, it's still a good excuse to get dressed up, and have a party!! The Tuesday which was actually Halloween involved a costume competition at our local hangout, the Studenterhus, in which my Superwoman outfit took 2nd place! And the pumpkin carving gave my friends 3rd place, so it was a very successful night all round!!





On the walk home through the forest that night, we discussed the possibility of snow, which had been predicted, however none of us really thought it was cold enough. So imagine my glee when I woke up the next morning to find it snowing!! It was so pretty, blowing everywhere!! I was so excited at the bus stop, everyone laughed at me, thinking I'd never seen snow, so I spent all day explaining that I had seen snow, I ski every year, but it's so exciting seeing snow in your daily life! It is very unusual for snow to happen in November in Denmark also, so I feel very privileged!! It stopped by lunchtime, and melted after a couple of days, but was still very lovely!



Then on the Friday night, we experienced another Danish tradition - Julol, or 'Christmas Beer'. It appears that at Christmas and Easter time, the Danish breweries make a stronger beer to help celebrate the holidays, and release it at 8:59pm on a certain Friday night, meaning all the bars give this beer away free at that time!! So it's a mad rush to the bar, Christmas songs are playing (ah, 'Last Christmas', that European chestnut!!), and everyone is making merry - quite a fun experience!!



We went to our local bar in our college, because my flatmates were throwing a Halloween party, complete with lots of bats and carved pumpkins, so I then brought everyone back to our flat - it was fun getting Christmas beer dressed as a faery for Halloween!! Saturday night was my German friend Philipp's birthday, so I enjoyed some German hospitality close to home, as his party was at our college, so we were all able to recover nicely after the strength of the Christmas beer!!



This week I have been afflicted with a cold, possibly as a consequence of the changing weather, possibly my body's resistance to my new gym membership, so have been taking it relatively easy, only going out for dinner on Wednesday night for my Italian friend Fabrizio's birthday. He is obsessed with the Vikings (or the Wikings as they call them here - 'V' isn't really a big letter in Europe!!), so we had a Viking party last night - lots of helmets (historically inaccurate, of course, as the Vikings didn't actually have horns on their helmets!), and general loutish behaviour!!



So, that's my life in a nutshell over the past few weeks - now I will settle down to some serious study, I promise!! After I go to Latvia in a couple of weekends, then I'll study ...