Views of my world

My street


Sunset over the canal

Just a quick post to show some photos of my new adopted city - I finally spent some time wandering around it the other weekend, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine (not warm, but pretty!), so I took some photos. I also took a photo of my street, to show the lovely little streets I keep talking about!

Work is starting to get busier, with increased access to programs meaning increased amounts of information to analyse, sort and enter. We watched some of our case this afternoon in court, which was very interesting - the mix of common law and civil law procedures is very interesting, with the judges and even the defendants able to interject with questions at any time - something I'm certainly not used to seeing!!

And my social life continues to thrive, as usual!! Last week we had severe storm warnings, meaning we were sent home early from work, told to stay indoors, and they closed all the train stations! These are part of the severe storms that have been killing people in Britain and Germany, so we were lucky to only get some wind and rain in my little part of the world! Emily, who is here from New Zealand with her brother Patrick, got stranded, however, as Patrick had gone to Amsterdam with their one set of keys, and couldn't get back because the trains weren't running! So Emily stayed at my place in an impromptu sleepover :-)

On Friday night we went out to a fun club, dancing til 3am as usual, which meant my Saturday was unproductive again! Saturday night we went to a Kiwi party, of a Shell Oil employee that Patrick had met in a club the previous week, so another late but fun night! And Sunday night we watched the last half of the 'Death of Yugoslavia' documentaries we had started the previous week, so now the history of what we're working on makes a lot more sense!!


James (Aussie) tearing up the dancefloor


Frida and me



Emily and me

Big Australia Day plans for Friday - the Australian Embassy here has invited us for drinks, and then we will show all the other interns how to celebrate in style! I may also head to Amsterdam for the weekend (it's only about an hour away on the train) - busy busy as always!!

Den Haag, I say!

Well, I have been so crazy busy this week that I've barely had time to think, let alone blog, but I thought I'd give you all a quick update!!

After having to move out of my place in Denmark last Thursday morning, I lived on Charlotte & Fabrizio's couch until my bus to the Hague on Saturday. I had a nice farewell party on Friday night - it was really sad leaving Denmark and all my friends there, but thanks to the combined wonders of Skype and e-mail, I still feel quite close to everyone (and, of course, geographically, I still am!)

After a quite pleasant (I slept most of the way) 12 hour bus ride, I arrived in Amsterdam, to rain, cold, and the need to drag my heavy bags to the train station! I caught the train to the Hague (Den Haag in Dutch), and called my landlady to meet me. And called, and called - she wasn't answering! After a number of messages and calls, it transpired that she had forgotten I was coming on Saturday night, and was at a dinner party!! She finally picked me up and took me to my new home - a cute little 3 storey terrace in a lovely little street. I was exhausted, so after some food, slept and slept!!

On Sunday I met my 5 new flatmates - Diana and Chelsea from America, Frida from Sweden, Ellie from Austria, and Andrea (the only guy) from Italy. They were all really friendly and lovely - Frida was also starting her internship on Monday, but the others have been here for a while, so were able to give us some tips. I just relaxed on Sunday, in preparation for a big Monday!

Frida and I walked to the ICTY on Monday (only 15 minutes from home is great!), and then spent the rest of the morning meeting the 25 other interns from all over the world starting that day - Americans, Aussies, Kiwis, Bulgarians, Italians, Romanians, Belgians, French, Norweigan, Swedish - even a girl from Cameroon! We got our official UN security passes (very exciting!), and then were divided into our 2 groups - I and about 15 new others are at the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP), which is the part that actually prosecutes the accused, and the others are at the Chambers, who work with the judges and the court. The two parts are quite separate in terms of work, but most of my flatmates are from Chambers, so there is quite a lot of social interaction!!

So in the afternoon we met our supervising attorneys, and were assigned our cases - we all work on a particular case, and I am working on an on-going case, that has been in trial since May last year, so I will actually be helping to prepare witnesses and documents for a live case - very exciting!! Although it is hard to get my head around all the details of the changes in the political and geographical climate of the former Yugoslavia - very complicated!!

The rest of this week has involved some training on computer programs we will need, some team meetings about how our case is going, and preparation for various aspects. I won't actually be able to describe in much detail what I do all day, as a lot of it is confidential, but it will be very hands-on, which is great!

My social life is also similar to my exchange experience, which is great - a fair few of us meet for lunch every day, and we had a drinks night on Tuesday night at a nearby wine bar, which was enjoyable! It's nice to then walk home with my flatmates and chat before going to bed - although there is no sound proofing here, and the kitchen is quite small, the friendliness of having 5 other people around is really nice!!

Tonight I went to the city centre for the first time, as we live between the city and the ICTY, and I have been too busy to get there! It is a cute little centre, cobbled little streets with small cosy bars and restaurants - it was a nice change to eat out, without exhorbitant Danish prices! (Although things are still expensive, the Euro seems much nicer than the Kroner!)

New Year, new country, new look

After Heathrow delayed us for 3 hours, then lost Charlotte's luggage, meaning we caught the train back to Aarhus at 9:40pm instead of 6:40pm, so I arrived home at 1:30am on Saturday night, it was nice to be back in Denmark!!

Happy New Year to everyone - I celebrated with a German raclette dinner, which is basically a grill, where you grill the meat on the top, then put little pans of vegetables & cheese underneath - it was very yummy, and lots of food! Then there were fireworks, then a trip to our Skjoldhoj bar, for dancing and drinking - a late night, but a great start to the New Year!!

Now I am just trying to organise my life for the big move!! I leave on Saturday morning for the Hague, so I need to pack, clean and sort everything out here in Denmark!

The good news is that I have now finished my degree - yay!! So no study to contend with, which is very relaxing!!

Oh, and I cut my hair again :-)