The home of Vermeer

Just to clarify, Darick and I are already home! I didn't have access to the internet for about two weeks, so I'm catching up now. There isn't any missing time in what you read...just a delay in putting it up.

So today I'll catch you up on our two days in the Hague, Netherlands.

On Sunday night, we traveled to the Hague with the group, and checked into our hotel, a Mercure. Given that these are very nice hotels, and it was raining. We stayed in and did nothing but watch TV for the evening. It was awesome.

On Monday morning, the group had a visit to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. We had a briefing on the Court and its workings and cases, and we were able to observe a witness examination for one of the ongoing cases. It's really fantastic for the students to study things like this and then to be a part of it, and observe how it functions. It's a verification process, of sorts, and I think it inspires some of them interested in choosing their career paths in human rights. I love this job. (While at this meeting, Darick went to the Het Mauritshuis to see the Girl with the Pearl Earring. He was more impressed with the Vermeer landscape, and I can't say I blame him.)

For lunch, we had a lecture, and we met our guest at an Indonesian restaurant called Garoede. The Dutch aren't known for their own food, but instead for the food of their colonial reign—Indonesian food. We had rijsttafel, which is rice with a wide assortment of types of “mix-ins.” I really like Indonesian food, and I made Darick attend the lecture to try the food—he enjoyed both.

After the long and late lunch, Darick and I broke off and rode the tram to Delft, the nearby town where Vermeer lived and painted. It was actually a horrible, dreary, wet day to be walking around, so Delft didn't end up being that attractive, but we did purchase some of the blue and white porcelain (Delftware) that Delft is known for, and we stopped for a beer in a Bierhuis near the tram stop. It was a very dark bar with only older, local patrons, with few beers available. No food, except peanuts on the table, and the patrons left their shells on the floor. It's been operating since 1651 or something ridiculous like that, and we loved it.

That night it rained like hell. Sucked. But we had to go out for food, so we found a pizzeria in the center of town called La Lanterna. It was pretty good, all told, though not phenomenal. But Darick had his first proper Italian pizza, and I was able to practice a bit of my restaurant Italian. A pleasant experience. We were soaked when we arrived home. Stupid rain.

The next morning, I wanted Darick to accompany us to the site visit to the International Criminal Court. We were allowed to observe the trial of Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia. He's been tried in the ICC facilities by the Special Court for Sierra Leone for war crimes and crimes against humanity. We were there for the questioning of a protected witness, one fairly high in Taylor's army, attesting to the chain of command for war crimes. The witness was blocked form our view, the video was pixelated, and the person's voice was electronically distorted, so no one could identify him. It was fascinating.

Darick was then into the political visits, so he came with us to a briefing by a Dutch parliamentarian on immigration. After this, we went to the Escher museum. Escher specialized in optical illusions, and quite a bit of his work is in this museum. Darick loved it. There's also a floor of physical illusions, but that doesn't compare to how great the work is. Here's a link to some here.

To kill a little remaining time, we stopped for a beer (a Leffe dark beer, which Darick loved) and some bitter ballen—my favorite bar food, and now Darick's too.

Then off to Belgium!