Den Haag + Amsterdam + Daniela = awesome weekend ever!

By now my most loyal readers (Daniela) know that my abroad program spends as little time as humanly possible in Brussels and instead we go to a million other places. This past weekend, we got to go to Den Haag (the Hague for non Dutch speaking folks) home of the International Criminal Court, Eurojust, Royal Palace and other wicked cool and awesome stuff. After that we headed over to Amsterdam for the weekend because what's a visit to the Netherlands without a visit to Amsterdam?



To commence then, on Wednesday we left Brussels via the 18:22 train to Den Haag were I had a jolly good time on the train laughing it up with Becca, Ben and Adrienne (and Flo for the 10 minutes she was there). Once we arrived to Den Haag two hours later, we were greeted by Jerry who took us to our hotel (we got off at Gravenstraat...that's right ppl i remember). We put our belongings down and headed out to see the locals. However, the locals won cause we were wicked tired and called it an early night.

Next morning we headed to the ICC and had two speakers tell us all about it and current cases they are working on. I t was totally awesome as well as a tour of one of the court rooms. It was totally legit although here's some advice... try to not end up here (unless you're a kick ass lawyer). Anyway then we had lunch and then back to the same building where we had a meeting with Eurojust. Again super awesome to see the institutions we read about in practice and hear from the professionals. That evening we again stayed up chatted and tried to interact with the locals but they won again.

On Friday we bested the awful weather and made it to the Netherlands Defense College for a lecture on...you guessed it defense and then lunch followed by a Jerry Tour....which was AWESOME as usual. Some of the highlights include the Royal Palace, seeing some embassies and learning where the prime minister lives (its nice let me tell you). Later we rendez-vous over to the OPCW for a lecture on chemical weapons and as soon as that was over it was officially the weekend and that meant...AMSTERDAM!!!!



By super awesome timing Daniela arrived at the train station at the same time as we did so after several months of not seeing each other we did and it was VERY EXCITING! I think we scared some of my Brussels peeps by our hugging...oh well. We all located our bus and headed our to Hotel Slotania (laugh here....go ahead) and promptly headed out once more! Becca, Ben Daniela and I made our way to Leidseplein (Led Zeppelin lol) the cool bar scene in Amsterdam to await the arrival of everyone else... I would say good bonding tome for all involved. Later, the four of us found this bar/club called News Cafe where we parked it for the rest of the night and had an AWESOME TIME!!!! We really did... more bonding and dancing and singing but especially bonding!

The next day the original four walked over to Central Station (took us two hours) to go on our walking tour.... we did lots of walking. On the way Daniela and I were able to catch up on lots of things...it was so much fun! Later we grabbed some lunch and met up with several other Brussels ppl for the walking tour which started at Dam Square. Tour took us through the the important Amsterdam sites including the Red Light District (yes I did see ladies in windows), occult churches, several "coffeeshops", the old Jewish Quarter, Rembrandt's casa, and lots and lots of canals. It was awesome and very educational (see even on our time off we get educated). Our last stop was the Anne Frank House were 4 + Erin stepped inside to visit the annex.... Completely worth it.

Sunday morning Daniela, Autumn and I rose early and headed to the Van Gogh Museum which was very interesting. I learned a lot about him. We later chilled at Museumplein (park right next to Van Gogh) for several hours before it was time for Autumn and I to head back to Brussels. Daniela dropped us off and I cried a little (I hate good-byes...even if they are see you laters) and off we went. Autumn and I chatted for a bit before falling asleep and when we woke we were home in Brussels once again.

Kiev.....that's in Ukraine

Soooooooooo for my internship I was given this totally awesome opportunity to go visit Kiev for the 55th General Assembly. After months of prep at the Brussels office, the time had finally come to go off into the world unknown (its a very exotic place.. no joke).

So i woke up at 5:30am on Tuesday to get myself all ready, set, go and made my way to the bus station at Schumann to catch the bus that goes to the airport... after getting lost (but only a little bit)I paid for my ticket and was off! I made it to the airport before any of my co-workers and stood in line waiting for them to arrive. Finally Charlotte and Miriam arrived and ditched Pawel who was M.I.A. and stood in the wicked long line for security. (Never again will I complain about airport security in the States). Anyway, we met up with everyone at our gate and boarded up to our first stop :Prague.

I wasn't doing too hotly in Prague(read: I became sick) so the original three hour made five hour layover was AWFUL except that a) this creepy Italian man was making a bad job of hitting on me and b) I meant Lucy who was one the Canadian reps on her way to Kiev as well. Lucy was very entertaining and she chatted with me the entire way there which is when things got interesting. We arrived at the airport which looked more like a bus station and nobody from ATA was there to pick us up. Lucy used her famazing Russian skills to ask around but still nada... so I called Pawel and Charlotte to see what was going on. They managed to get us a car and we drove the 45 minutes into town. By this point neither one of us had eaten since breakfast and were famished so we ate the the hotel's restaurant where I proceeded to get insulted by some locals for being American and wanting to take over everywhere.It was so fun to be insulted...not. Anyway no biggie but I was wicked tired to I called it a night.

Next morning Miriam and I got dressed and were ready to help but Charlotte told us she didn't need us right away so we thought we'd take the morning off to see the city. However, Pawel did so we went straight to work...... and that's what I basically did the remainder of my time in Kiev. I sat in on lectures, meetings, helped out board members, took notes and everyone's favorite....distributed reimbursements. I got to meet some awesome people, namely those of the Slovakian and Canadian delegations and on Thursday but it failed mostly cause I wasn't feeling it and then again on Friday and that was a huge success.

On Saturday morning we got to go on a hour and a half tour on Kiev before boarding the bus back to the airport. What I did get to see was absolutely gorgeous and a great incentive to go back someday to see it properly. I made it back to Brussels without a hitch and rested up the following day after my five-days of non-stop running around...but it was totally worth it!

Benelux + Germany= fun fun fun

so I'm officially wicked behind on posts because I've been running around like a mad woman but two weekends ago I was in the following cities... ready? Luxembourg City, Trier, Maastricht and Liege (and I hope in that order).

In Luxembourg we got to go visit the European Court of Justice and the European Investment Bank which were both extremely educational and really cool to see what we learned in class in action and what not. Everyone at both institutions were extremely friendly and I'm so glad we had such an amazing opportunity to go. That evening, we ventured towards "nightlife" and after several failed attempts where tensions rose a bit...lol, we made it to BANANAS...lmao. It was your typical European bar with background American music and we promptly made it a very loud place to be.

Next morning we headed off to Trier to see an ancient Roman city in Germany. We headed to the museum where the security guards followed us around the ENTIRE time we were there. It was a bit unnerving, especially since we were the only group dignified with a personal body guard.... it was bizarre and I still don;t understand why we were followed so closely. After that, Prof. Sheridan took us once again on one of his awesome city torus and we saw the PorteNegra, the Imperial Baths, the old Throne room (now a church), the old Jewish ghetto and many more awesome sites.

Next day we were in Maastricht for a bit to see some of the Netherlands but unfortunately couldn't stay the night because nobody could accommodate us so we drove into Liege and it was the first city without a Jerry Tour. Although as luck would have it we met up with him at an Irish pub so it was good fun and an awesome time.

The next morning was a somber one as we headed to the American WWII cementary and then museum. It was difficult to see all the fallen troops and it puts into perspective all the lives lost during the Second World War. After our long and reflective day we headed home to Brussels to see the start of a new week.

Next blog...Kiev!