Fireworks and Lessons on Being the Most Popular Girl in the Dorm, or Why I Carry a Corkscrew Around with Me...

Friends, Neighbors, Countrymen,

So, I wrote this post, like, two weeks ago, but it never made it to the interwebs because of my shotty internet access, I’ve decided to just post it, as is, instead of trying to edit it, because it is old…  Anyway, enjoy!

I can’t believe that it is Tuesday, again, already!  Last week was one of those week where there were not enough hours in the week, but in the best possible way.  I still have very little idea exactly what it is that I am supposed to be getting out of this conference, substantively, but I came for the networking and the caliber of people with whom I have become friends, here, has exceeded any expectations I could have had, so I still think it was worth the trip.  I hope I can remember all of my adventures for last week, I suppose I should start from the beginning… ;P

Last Monday, we had class all day, then I went to dinner in one of the university cafeterias, for dinner, and as I have mentioned previously, the food was blah, at best, but it was cheap and it was sustenance, so it got the job done.  Then, Monday evening, I went to a “live coding party” (we weren’t told that that was what it was until we had been there for a while…) with a bunch of heroes from 3 continents.  :P  The show wasn’t great, but the company was, so we sat outside in this courtyard on the campus, here, at the University of Strasbourg and hung out and laughed and laughed. 

On Tuesday, I think we just hung out, but I don’t even remember…

Wednesday was kind of out of control.  Thursday was Bastille Day, which is, obviously, a national holiday in France, so we didn’t have class.  As a result, we went to class, on Wednesday, obviously, then we went out to dinner (I’m pretty sure we had kabab, but that could just be because I feel like that is all I eat, here), opened some wine and hung out in front of the dorm and drank for a few hours, then we decided we were going to go to this nightclub, but it was one of those places with the red rope and the list and they wouldn’t let us in, so the group kind of split up and I ended up on the boat with the nightclub, again, with a couple of my American friends (again).  They played a really strange mix of music, that night.  There was an unfortunate amount of French rock and pop played, but they broke it up with some MC Hammer and 80s delights, so we stayed and danced the night away.  Literally.  When they finally closed it down and we left, we came up out of the cabin and I looked to the Eastern sky and said “is that the SUN I’m seeing over there?!?!”  Someone looked at a watch and said, “yup, it’s 5AM…”  Can you imagine?!?!  5AM on a Wednesday night!!  I’m getting too old for this nonsense.  :P  Still, we headed back to the dorm and decided, at that point, that we might as well watch the sunrise, at that point.  It was a pretty lame sunrise, but it was a great night.  J

On Thursday, I slept in (obviously) until about 2:30PM, then pulled myself together because there were FIREWORKS to be seen!!  We had another get-together at my professor’s apartment and I when I offered to bring something, my professor asked me to bring something sweet (besides, and I quote, “your own self”, she’s a gem), but a lot of places were closed so I went to this pastry shop by the dorm and bought all of the macaroons the guy had.  It was pretty funny, because he was shocked that I wanted all of them.  I said “tous” (all) and gestured to all of them with my hand and he said “two?” and held up two fingers and I said “non, tous” and made a more elaborate hand gesture.  He still wouldn’t believe that I was buying every macaroon he had in the display case, so when he asked how many, again, I just told him I wanted twelve.  He got out a box and asked about flavors (there were chocolate, pistachio, and coffee macaroons in the case).  I didn’t know he would have more so when he went in the back and came out with raspberry, I was pretty excited.  He packed them in a box for me, then, before he rang them up, he did the math on a calculator to show me how much it was going to cost.  When I agreed without any argument or shock, he decided to throw in six Turkish delights for free and was very gracious.  It was pretty neat.  J

I went to the party at the professor’s apartment with my classmates and there was all kinds of good food and the macaroons were a big hit.  After we ate and cleaned up, it was time to go find our spot for the fireworks.  As I may have mentioned before, I bought a corkscrew in Geneva that was the best investment I have made, on this adventure.  It comes with me pretty much everywhere I go, and is often accompanied by plastic cups and at least one bottle of wine.  Wine is the best way I know of to deal with the lack of air conditioning pretty much everywhere (at least when it’s hot, that is), so it’s been kind of a staple.  I bought this cute little cloth bag at Gap, the other day, to carry my books and computer to and from class in, and it has also really come in handy.  That night, I discovered that it quite nicely holds a bottle of wine, cups, the corkscrew, my wallet and other necessary, my airplane blanket, and a sweatshirt. 

Anyway, we got the park and sat down on the blanket with the wine and waited for the fireworks to start.  While we waited, one of my classmates who is a real gem (and happens to have coined the term “jank”, which is simply brilliant) came up with games for us to play.  We played a game where we had to come up with names of comedians that started with certain letters that was pretty fun.  As for the fireworks, well, those of you who know me best know how I feel about fireworks (as for those of you who may not, they are among my favorite, favorite things in the whole world, ever), and, growing up in St. Louis, I had access to some of the best fireworks displays in the country, if not the world, so I’m not too easily impressed.  That being said, it turns out that the spot we picked was AMAZING and the fireworks were really, really cool.

After the fireworks were over, we wandered back to the dorm to drink more wine and play more games.  Some of my Americans and some of my Europeans and some new friends we made, that night, and I went to this patio in the back of the dorm and sat on the blanket, again, and played drop, screw, or marry.  The premise of the game is that someone in the circle gives someone else a list of three people (and house rules, in this case, said it couldn’t be anyone in the circle, other than that, anyone is fair game) and the other person has to say who they would drop off a cliff and wave goodbye as they plummet to their death, who they would sleep with for one night, and who they would marry, which entails sleeping in the same bed and generally living together for one year, but the chooser can determine whether said marriage is consummated.  The game was SUPER fun, because I was playing with a group of really clever, well-educated people, so the lists of people were pretty ridiculous.  They ranged from Tweetybird to Lavar Burton to Jesus, Karl Marx, Charles De Gaulle, our professors from the three courses, and folk singers from the 1970s, among many others.  This went on late into the night, but eventually we ran out of wine and went to bed.  :P

Learning to Speak Italian and Polish in France. Baden Baden Panda.

Friends, Neighbors, Countrymen,

What a weekend it has been!  Thursday night, I went out to this place called Giraf Café with a group of people that my Polish and Croatian friends met the other day and we a blast.  The place was really chill and we just sat outside and had drinks and laughed about silly things until we cried.  The Filipina girl (who is such a gem) tried to text the Canadian guy from the Australian’s phone and had a hard time with the touch screen, so she ended up accidentally saying that he should meet us at the pan, instead of meeting us at the pub.  Somehow that devolved into he was probably lost, roaming the city, looking for pandas and giraffes, never to be seen, again.  The poor Filipina was harassed about that, for the rest of the weekend, but she’s been a good sport.  

Friday, we, of course, had class from 8:30-12:45, then, went to the university cafeteria for lunch.  It’s funny how university cafeteria food is universally awful, no matter where in the world you find yourself eating it.  There’s no flavor to it and it is all carbs and fat.  Now that I am more aware of what I am putting in my body than I was as a college freshman, I am not at all surprised that people gain weight in college.  Gross.  On the plus, though, I have somehow become part of a social group at the conference that is, in fact, so large, that we don’t all fit at one table.  When we split into two groups, I found myself sitting with my Polish BFF (because we are together, most of the time) and two people I had not yet met, an Albanian girl and a Russian guy, both of whom had interned at the Council of Europe and knew Strasbourg, so they filled us in on where to go and what to see, while we are here.  The Albanian girl ended up sitting next to me in class that afternoon and we bounded over our general nerd tendencies and gossiping about boys.  :P

Friday evening, my Americans and I had an extra class for the Santa Clara program taught by a lawyer for the European Court of Human Rights which was very interesting and gave me some insights into how much has changed in global politics, and particularly in the Council of Europe/European Union since I graduated from college and why my European friends looked at me like I was a little crazy when I was confused about the case studies we did in the UN Human Rights Protection System seminar (because I was trying to figure out what effect a decision from the Human Rights Council, for instance, would have on the actual protection of an individual’s rights from their state, if the state is the violator).  These courts are actually gaining some real legitimacy and power in the international community and it’s fascinating to learn about how that process is occurring, right now, here in Strasbourg, and in other regional courts around the world, as well as at the UN level. 

That being said, more class on Friday evening was a little rough, but I had a delightful dinner with the Albanian girl and my new Italian friend.  These two met at the airport and became fast friends.  The Italian guy knew the Croatian guy from a conference they attended together in Venice and we’ve all just kind of become one big, happy family, haha.  Anyway, the Italian guy recognized the owner of this Egyptian kabab place we went to when he and the Albanian were at the airport because the Egyptian guy owns a pizza place in Rome where the Italian guy used to go, all the time, before he moved to Spain.  They apparently talked at the airport and the Egyptian guy told my friends that they were welcome at his kabab restaurant, anytime, and that if they asked for him, he would make them something special.

Sidebar: This was the 3^rd or 4^th time, last week, that I had Middle Eastern food for dinner, I’m kind of in love with it, right now, which is not what I expected to happen in France, but it seems to be better for me than traditional French food, so I’ll take it. 

Back to my story… my new friends invited me to join them and it sounded like fun and I had nothing else to do, so I happily agreed.  We went to the kabab place and asked for the owner.  As it turns out, his cousin is also at the conference, because she works for Boutros Boutros-Ghali and he sends her, every year, because he knows that she likes to come to visit her family.  This young woman (who has the most adorable children, ever), helped me pick out what to eat (I had a kefta sandwich that was amazing) and then told us about living through the revolution in Egypt while we ate.  She said that she and her sister went to Tehrir Square to see the protesters, but they couldn’t tell their mother because she would be very worried.  She also told us about her friend, an artist, who had been a part of the original facebook activists, who was disappeared and later found murdered because of his involvement.  It was a sad story, but it underscored the reason we are all here, at the International Institute for Human Rights, quite poignantly, I think.

Anyway, we ate our sandwiches and then the owner brought us pizza that he made especially for us (the restaurant doesn’t even serve pizza) because my Italian friend knew him from his pizza restaurant in Rome.  The pizza had a chorizo-like sausage, red peppers, and onions (I think) on it, and it was the best pizza I have eaten since I arrived in Europe about 6 weeks ago.  It’s probably the best pizza I’ve had in longer than that, but that’s as far back as I can remember.  The owner and his family joined us and sat and chatted, but, except for the cousin from the conference, they spoke very little English, so I just sat and smiled and listened to them and my new friends speak Italian.  Italian is fairly close to Spanish, so I was actually able to pick out words and phrases, but I feasted like a queen and enjoyed the evening and was, in some ways, delighted that I wasn’t expected to participate in the conversation, unless some actually spoke to me in English.  For some reason, the restaurant owner decided that I was blond and kept calling me “blond girl” in Italian, even though my friends told him that I am a redhead, not a blond.  He told them that he was not wrong, though, because I have blond eyebrows.  It was very strange, but very funny.

Because we started late and sat and talked and ate for hours, we didn’t leave the restaurant until almost 1AM, we had planned on going to a bar, afterwards, but when we realized the time, we decided to come back to the dorm and take the bottle of wine I had in my room outside to share, instead.  We found my Polish friend when we got back and sat on the front stoop of the dorm and talked to everyone who walked by.  We had had a minority rights lecture, that day, and were talking about who raised their hands when the professor asked who belonged to a minority, in the room.  I said that I thought about it because I’m a redhead and this delightful Brazilian guy turned around and told me that we no longer count (in his words, “It’s ova.”) because one of us went flying around New York City in the arms of Spiderman, so now we are sex symbols, all over the world.  I tried to argue that lots of minorities are also sex symbols and he tried to convince me that, with Spiderman’s protection, we are certainly not vulnerable, to which I responded that vulnerability is not an internationally-recognized element of the definition of minority, but he wasn’t having it and I decided to concede because he did keep telling me that I’m a sex symbol and that I have beautiful hair.  :{P

As we were sitting there, my Polish friend (who, as I think I told you before, teaches Human Rights Law at a law school in Warsaw) decided to TRY to teach my Italian friend and I, some Polish tongue twisters to improve our pronunciation in Polish.  It was very, very hard and I decided that I have a lot of respect for anyone who can learn Polish as a non-native speaker because of all of the different kinds of soft consonant sounds that language requires you to be able to make.  We sat and talked and laughed until about 3:30 in the morning when we decided that it was time for bed.

On Saturday, I got up at around 10:45 to pull myself together and go shopping with my Albanian friend, because I needed to get a French phone number so we could communicate, later that night, after I had a dinner party with my Americans.  I ran into my Italian friend in the dorm and we went for coffee and decided that we do laundry together after I shopped and he went to Germany to pick up the bike he rented for the month.  We couldn’t find any place open for coffee, except this little Turkish restaurant, so we sat down to have espressos.  While we were sitting there, the Albanian, and then, later, the Croatian happened to pass by and sat down to join us.  After we had our (terrible by all of our standards) coffee, the Albanian girl and I went shopping to get my SIM card and some other things, then I came back to the dorm, found my Italian, and started the laundry.  It was funny because he had never used a dryer, before, because in Italy and in Spain (where he lives, now), he just hangs his clothes out in the sun to dry.  I told him that his clothes might shrink in the dryer, but that I wasn’t sure, so he should dry at his own risk (don’t worry, though, as far as I could tell, nothing bad happened). 

In the meantime, I had to shower and get ready to go to a potluck at my professor’s apartment.  I had no idea where it was and, while I’m sure I could have figured it out on my own, I was relieved that I ran into my friend from Chicago in the dorm and we agreed to go together.  The Italian and I had a little trouble figuring out the dryer situation, so that took longer than I expected and, of course, my clothes weren’t dry when I went to pull them out, so I pulled out a pair of jeans, put them on, and left everything else in his capable hands to go to the party.  As I was leaving my room, I ran into my next door neighbor, who is from California, too, but is here with a different school.  I asked if he had plans for the evening and he said, not yet, so I got his number and told him I would let him know what we were doing, later. 

We went to the party and there was lots of good food and wine and we generally had a lovely time.  At around 10:30, we left the party and I went to meet up with my new CA friend and his classmates at this little bar area along the river.  We sat and had drinks and then they decided that they wanted to get something to eat, but he and I wanted to keep drinking so we went to try to meet up with my ragtag band of international superstars.  We ended up back at Giraf Café and ordered the “Giraf” of beer which is a 3L beer dispenser similar to what you would get if you ordered a yard, in Chicago.  After we finished the Giraf with that crowd, my neighbor and I went back to the river to look for his classmates.  We didn’t really find any of them, but decided we would stay and check out the bars that are actually on the boats docked there.  We paid 3 euros as a cover charge and then we boarded the boat and went down into the cabin of the boat, which turned out to be a very small nightclub.  We got drinks and sat on a bench at the back of the dance floor that gave us a good view of the whole place.  We sat there and made up stories about people on the dance floor and generally enjoyed ourselves, then wandered back to the dorm at around 3:30AM.

Obviously, having been out until the wee hours of the morning two nights in a row, in addition to not getting enough sleep, the rest of the week really took it out of me.  On Sunday, my friends rented some bikes and rode them to Germany (which is apparently only about 15 minutes away, by bike), but I decided to sleep in, so I didn’t get up until about 3PM.  When I did finally pull myself together, I met up with my Italian friend, because he still had all of my clothes, since I had left the laundry for him to pull out of the dryer when I went to the party at our professor’s apartment, the night before.  Of course, the fact that all of my clothes were in his room became a running joke about what they were doing there, haha.  It gets better, though, he is a total gem and had folded most of my clothes and put them back in my suitcase, which saved me from having wrinkled clothes and saved a lot of time, so he’s obviously my favorite Italian, this week.  ;{P  We met up with our other friends and decided and to get dinner.  The Albanian girl speaks Turkish (among several other languages, she’s AMAZING) and had made friends with some Turkish people who own a kabab place near where we are staying, so we went there and, in addition to the food we ordered, they also served us these little appetizers that were like spicy couscous nuggets wrapped in lettuce before our meal and then traditional Turkish tea, after dinner. 

As you can imagine, I’m delighted that I have become friends with all of these people, but, from a very self-interested perspective, the Albanian girl is a REAL find.  I’m obviously sticking with her, as much as possible for dinner.  J

Anyway, class is over and I have more adventures to find, so I should get going.  I promise more exciting tales to come!

Hugs and Kisses!

Emily

A Pole, a Croat, an Australian, and an American walk into a Mexican Restaurant in France...

Friends, Neighbors, Countrymen,

So, I have been in Strasbourg for nearly a week and am really enjoying myself, here, despite what can generously be described as Spartan living conditions and the incredibly disorganized nature of this conference.  I have made some very cool international friends and the lectures are starting to get interesting/useful to me.

First, let me tell you about the living conditions, which I have to laugh about, because there's nothing else that can be done about them and it makes me feel a little better about the whole situation.  :P  We are staying in college dorms at the University of Strasbourg and I really do not envy the people who must live in them full-time.  We seemed to be assigned rooms on a first-come, first-served basis, so whomever was next in line after you checking in is your next door neighbor.  I’m really glad I took the train and arrived with my girl, Karbear, because we got rooms together, which was nice. 

The bathrooms and showers are community-style, but there is no separate accommodations for men and women.  There are about 20 rooms sharing 4 toilet stalls and 4 shower stalls and we are all mixed together.  The good news is, it turns out that this doesn’t bother me as much as I would have expected and there is a decent amount of privacy in both rooms and I haven’t have to fight or wait for a shower, amazingly.  The bad news is, there are NO TOILET SEATS and the showers are the kind of things you find at public pools with the faucet that has to be pushed in every 30 seconds. 

When I say there are no toilet seats, I don’t mean that these are toilets that are designed to not have them, I mean there holes on the toilet on which one would typically expect a seat to be mounted but there is nothing there.  My Croatian friend says that he has seen more luxurious water closet facilities in the middle of the Sahara and I have no problem believing that.  The showers are kind of annoying, but they get and stay hot and the water pressure is adequate, so I will live.

The rooms are actually not too bad.  We are all in single rooms, which is critical, I don’t think I could handle sharing one, at this point.  I like having a sink in my room and I have a fridge and enough storage for my clothes and other necessities, so I can’t really complain about that.  The only big problems I have with my room are that I keep tripping the circuit breaker with my hair dryer (thankfully, not a big deal, because I the fuse box is in my room, so I just have to flip it back up and go about my business) and the lack of internet access, which is seriously frustrating.

At least we have internet access in the building where we have classes, but, of course, there are not NEARLY enough power outlets for everyone (there are probably about 120 people in the English-speaking section and about 8 outlets in the classroom), and we are in class from 8:30AM – 12:45PM, then again from 2:15PM – 4:15PM (and until 6:30PM, one day a week, when we have an additional smaller seminar section), so it’s basically impossible to use a computer to take notes for every class.  That being the case (among other things, that aren’t really interesting, so I won’t talk about them), it has been REALLY difficult for me to feel organized with this stuff, in any fashion.  That wouldn’t really bother me, except that I will have an exam at the end of this thing, so I’m a little concerned about what will happen when (if) the material gets more challenging.  Ugh.

Other than in the classroom building, we can get internet access outside of the dorm, by a restaurant that apparently has wifi, but is closed for the summer.  Ridiculous.  At any rate, you now know one of the reasons that I have not posted in a while, at least.

All of that being said, I have met some SUPER cool people, here.  I am across the hall from a couple of PhD students (one, a Polish girl, is a lawyer, and the other, a Croatian dude, is a political scientist).  I’ve been sitting with them in class and it’s really nice to have people to discuss the material with who are actually more knowledgeable about it than I am.  There’s also a new girl in the Santa Clara program who is pretty great, she has travelled all over and has some really fascinating stories about her adventures.  I am probably learning as much from them as I am from the lecturers and I’m having a lot of fun with them, too, so I’m a happy little ginger, on that front.

The courses wear pretty elementary at the beginning of the week.  We had a series of lectures on the Human Rights Protection Mechanisms at the UN and lecture that was supposed to be on the Historical Development of Human Rights, but ended up alternating between the history of international law, in general, and international shit-kicking on the part of the professor.  It was a “beat up on America” session as much as anything else and, while I tend to agree with the premise of most of the criticisms, I’ve reached a point in my life where I have very little patience for criticism without a viable alternative solution, so I don’t want to hear about the big, bad US and how we should have captured Bin Laden instead of killing him (a premise I actually agree with, in theory) unless the critic can tell me how it could have been done (because I think we would all agree that that man had to be stopped).

It’s interesting to me that, whereas in high school and much of college, I might have been among the loudest critics depending , here, the exact same kind of criticism as I would have encountered from people from other countries at a Model UN conference, for example, puts me a little on the defensive.  I don’t know if it’s because I have a lot of faith in my current president (and I did not in the last one) or if it is the result of my furthering education and life experience or if it is just my age, but it feels a little strange, in any case.

As the week has progressed, though, the courses have begun to challenge me and excite me a little.  We had a great lecture on the Action and International Objectives of Combating Extreme Poverty presented by a gentlemen from the UN High Commission on Human Rights, Millennium Development Goals Implementation Unit.  The Techniques of Human Rights Protection series seems like it is going to be pretty great, too, so I have high hopes for the rest of the conference.

The occasional overzealous critique of American foreign policy (and misinformation on economics, which is a totally different subject that you don’t want me to get into) at the conference, aside, the people in Strasbourg are just delightful.  There are fewer English speakers, here, than any other place we’ve been, but I don’t feel like I’m not wanted, because I’m a foreigner, like I did in Switzerland.  The Swiss were, quite frankly, with a few charming exceptions, weird.  I was worried that I had lost my edge/desire to live abroad, etc., in Switzerland, because I just plain didn’t really like it there.  It’s a HUGE relief that I am pretty comfortable in Strasbourg and have very easily made friends with several people from other countries, since I got here.  I feel a whole lot more like myself, now, haha.

I have to admit, I don’t know what I expected from this trip, but I have been kind of disappointed, in some respects.  It has been hard to get excited about the subject matter (except the one class on the World Trade Organization in Geneva and the visit to the UNHCR, it’s a strange combination, I know, but it’s who I am, I guess).  I mean, the class in Geneva was a nice refresher, because I have been out of the UN system game and the political science aspects of international organizations for a while and I’m a little rusty, but I was hoping for something a little more stimulating.  I finally went up to one of the presenters and asked a question after class and got his business card, today.  I’ve only been in Europe for almost 6 weeks and came here primarily to network, so it’s about time I got my act together and started doing it. 

Still, it is really nice to have a summer to do something totally different.  I went shopping with my new classmate the other day and bought some fun, casual summer clothes, the likes of which I have not had in many years.  Spending all of my time with a bunch of people from California and living without A/C has me dressing like a Texan, again.  I bought a few tube tops and sleeveless shirts and peasant tops and couldn’t be more excited about the fact that I can actually wear them on a daily basis, so that’s one good thing that has come out of the lack of A/C situation (which, by the way, I expected, it just is what it is).

Anyway, as I mentioned, this conference is really poorly organized, so I have been having to put together all of the information that should be on one schedule, myself, and I should probably get back to that, reading the course outlines, etc., and get dinner.  We got to have a reception with some judges from the European Court of Human Rights and observed a session of the Grand Chamber, there, which was very, very cool, but I’ll have to tell you about that, later.  ;{P

I hope all is well, miss you bunches!

Emily

New friends and thinking BIG!

Friends, Neighbors, Countrymen,


I am now nearly halfway through this European adventure and it certainly has been a trip.  Along the way, I have met some fascinating people who are passionate about making the world a better place and having fun in the process, made some amazing friends, and experienced several "growth opportunities."


One thing that is becoming abundantly clear, as I attend these site visits in Geneva is that I am not cut out for being a lawyer in the traditional, American sense.  Socially and on a personal level, I adore my classmates, and some of them are truly interesting and insightful people from whom I believe I have a some things to learn, but I feel like I want something different from life than they do.  I am feeling a much stronger pull towards the public policy aspects of international law.  It has occurred to me since I've been in Europe that I am, first and foremost, a diplomat and a politician and that that is what I loved about Model UN.  


My professor, here in Geneva, has been taking smaller groups of us to lunch to get to know us better and give us an opportunity to ask career-related questions, etc.  I got pulled into the first group to go, because I roll with the A-Team, apparently (I know, I know, this shocks no one who knows me, but I still find it pleasantly surprising).  One of my friends was asking him if there were career moves that might cut her off from what she wants to do, ultimately.  His advice was to take every appealing opportunity that comes your way and see what happens, because you never know what you are going to like or where an opportunity might lead until you are there.  I have a lot of respect for this man and think that if I live as interesting a life as he does, I will have done quite well for myself, so it was comforting to hear that he has lived the same life philosophy to which I subscribe and it seems to be working out well for him, so far.  


All of that being said, I have not encountered anyone who does something that really excites  me, enough, that I feel compelled to pursue it, to the exclusion of everything else, which is a little disappointing.  If I'm going to do this international law thing, I need to be excited about pursuing it, and I'm just not enough, yet.  I'm looking for something that excites me and fulfills me the way MUN did.  It was suggested to me, the other day, by one of my MUN friends, that I finally give in and join staff at AMUN and he may have caught me at just the right moment, because I am very seriously considering it.  Beyond that, I guess I have to keep on swimming, but combine the lack of excitement with keeping myself together in unfamiliar surroundings and I'm deep-down-in-my-bones tired.  I guess the comforting thing about that is that I don't seem to be alone in it.  Everybody in my class seems to be experiencing a bit of culture shock and homesickness, too.  I don't like it, but it happens to everyone, I guess, so we just have to get through it.


I, at least, got a little bit of a reprieve from that, last weekend, when I met up with my folks in Rome.  I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about Italy, because it has never held any real appeal to me.  My last roommate here, Sara, was Italian, though, and she was pretty great, so I was willing to be open-minded about it.  I'm really glad that I have had all of the cross-cultural training that I have, between school, MUN, Rotaract, and working at Rotary, because once I got past the frustration of missing my flight to Rome and having to take the train to Assisi and the initial discomfort of the forced intimacy of the design of the train cars in Italy, I kind of fell in love with the Italians.  It took some conscious effort to accept the circumstances in which I was traveling, though, as it has in Switzerland, also (which is also exhausting).  Once I did, I was able to seriously enjoy what was going on around me.  The highlight of the train ride, from a cultural perspective, was definitely the middle-aged Italian man who appointed himself host of the compartment and gave everyone snacks and tried to engage everyone in conversation.  Even though we did not speak the same language, he got me to smile and made me feel included, which in my opinion, is a real gift.


I have really enjoyed meeting all of the new people, Americans and Europeans, that I have encountered during my travels, though.  It's funny how, when you are in a place that is completely foreign to you, a little thing like sharing a native language will make you share yourself with a complete stranger.  In addition to the charming Italian man who offered me a snack when I was on the train from Milan to Assisi, I met a very nice American man who came into the compartment where I was sitting by myself, pretending like I was going to study, and simply struck up a conversation.  I was so tired and a little lonely, at that point, that I was really grateful for the company and he turned out to be pretty cool.  We told each other our (albeit very abridged) life stories and basically enjoyed each other's company until his stop came up, then he gave me his business card and we agreed to keep in touch.


In Italy, we went to the Cathedral of St. Francis, where he is buried, and had Mass, in his tomb.  My parents are on a cruise with a church group, so there are a bunch of priests and nuns with them and they are having Mass, everywhere.  It's interesting to me, though, the way I can go months without even thinking about Mass and religion and whatnot, but then, when I need it most, something will happen that makes me feel like I'm on the right path.  The Prayer of St. Francis is my favorite hymn, because it reminds me that I often feel like there's something big and important that I'm supposed to do with my life, that that is not going to be easy, but that the feeling of rightness when it happens will be worth the effort.  For those of you who are not familiar with the Prayer of St. Francis, here's a taste from Princess Di's funeral.  

When I got back to Switzerland, I was so in my own little world, thinking all of these big thoughts, that I apparently walked RIGHT past one of my friends, here, on the street and didn't even see him.  I had headphones on, so I didn't hear him when he tried to get my attention.  I only learned that I had done this when I got back to my dorm room and had a facebook message from him (don't worry, he was nice about it).  Again, I know it won't surprise any of you who know me well that this happened, and I can even believe, most of the time, that you find it to be a charming quirk, but that doesn't really make me feel like any less of jerk when I do it, haha.  At any rate, I decided it was time to cut myself some slack and indulge in some activities that I find comfortingly familiar.  To that end, we went to McDonalds for dinner and paid an exorbitant amount of money for Cheeseburger Royal value meals (Quarter Pounders), but they were worth every penny.  Then we grabbed a bottle of wine and hit the swing set down by the lake.  You know how much I LOVE to swing, so by the end of the evening, I was feeling MUCH more like myself and ready to face the week, ahead.

Unfortunately, it was really hot here Monday and Tuesday and nobody got much sleep, because there's no air conditioning in the dorms.  That doesn't really surprise me, but there's also no screens on the windows which is a little bizarre because there are definitely mosquitos, here.  The good news is that it seems to have cooled off, today, and I'm expecting to sleep like a rock, tonight.  Of course, I am behind on the reading, because who can focus when salty, tired, and overheated, certainly not this girl.  And the final exam for this class is on Friday, then we move on to Strasbourg on Saturday, to start our last class of the summer, which is supposed to be MORE intense and involve even less luxurious accommodations than what we have in Geneva, but I have my friends, now, so I say bring it on.  


And with that, I should probably get back to studying, because this reading isn't going to do itself, and I want to make a good impression on this professor, because he seems like "someone who is good to know," as my former boss would say.  :P


Hugs and Kisses!
Emily

Boiling Pasta as the Italians Do and Other Lessons

Bon soir mes amis,


Again, I apologize for the delay in writing.  Things have been, as I'm sure you can imagine, a little crazy, in my world, lately, and I had trouble establishing a reliable internet connection, yet again.  The good news is, after 5 delicious and exciting days in Paris, we made it to Switzerland.  I'll have to write about Paris, later (I have notes on paper, so maybe I'll publish that, at some point), because I've been in Geneva for a week, already, and have much to tell you about that.


We, my new friends and travel companions and I, arrived in Geneva last Sunday and checked into the dorms, here.  We took a high speed train from Paris and, because I have a Eurail pass (which I will tell you about later, I have not been as impressed as others, but it has it's good points), I was able to sit in first class.  Let me tell you, I am not going back.  First class train travel is the way to go, if you can afford/swing it.  I had a window seat that didn't have any seats next to it and they served a little snack of fresh fruit and little, tiny slices of French toast.  It was delightful, particularly compared to the 2nd class travel we did on the way from Den Haag to Paris, which would have been truly miserable without my friends (I'm looking at you, Matt).


So, we arrived in Geneva and went looking for food.  The neighborhood where our dorms are is a strange place (as is much of the rest of this town, to be honest), it reminds me a little of Rogers Park, with it's serious melting pot character.  At any rate, we found a Mediterranean restaurant and, after the initial sticker shock, settled in to eat our meals of what was basically chicken tandoori.  Food is REALLY expensive, here, but the good news is that we have kitchenettes in the dorm, so there has been a lot of grocery shopping and pasta cooking (with wine, of course, lots of wine).  Tonight, I learned that my roommate is an Italian student working on her PhD in Literature.  She taught me how to make pasta, the Italian way, which just means putting one to two teaspoons of salt in the water.  She also told me that I should know how to prepare it like an Italian, because I bought good pasta (apparently, Italians really do eat Barilla, too), haha.  She's very nice and has been keeping me informed as to the way things work, here, at the dorm, because no one else has really filled us in about anything.  Apparently, tomorrow, we are to take our towels and sheets down to the laundry to be washed.  Good thing she told me, because mine need to be washed.


Despite my decidedly mixed feelings about Geneva, the class here has been really cool, so far, and the people are pretty awesome, too.  Last week, we had a German-Swiss International Public lawyer who is a professor at the University of Geneva (and arguing on behalf of Germany at the ICJ in a month, how cool is that?!?!) give us an amazingly thorough and easy-to-understand overview of International Public Law (how treaties are formed and what they mean for the parties, etc.) in just 12 hours.  It was pretty impressive.


Other than class, we've done some pretty cool stuff in Geneva.  It's relatively small, but it seems like there is always something going on.  On Thursday, we went to the World Health Organization and a medical expert gave us a lecture on WHO's efforts to contain and lessen the impact of HIV/AIDS throughout the world.  On Friday, I went to the History of Science museum with one of my new friends, had omelets for lunch at this charming little cafe on the south side of the river, and then, since it was raining and we were tired, stayed in watched movies while I worked on my paper for International Criminal Law.  I spent a decent amount of time, just hanging out and getting to know my classmates, because it was raining, on and off, all weekend, which was actually pretty great.  Last night, we had dinner in the dorm, accompanied with LOTS of wine, since that's the bulk of what I buy at the grocery store (not all that different from home, actually, haha), then went to a music festival in the Old City, which was very cool and super fun.  Today, I spent some time organizing my life, called my dad, and got to know my roommate, a little.  All in all, not a super touristy or busy weekend, but kind of normal in a much-needed way.  Things have been so up-in-air and foreign for the past 3 weeks, that it was really nice to just do some normal, fun, everyday things with people I really like.


Several of my classmates went to Monaco, for the weekend, and as much as I would have liked to add another notch to my belt of places I've been in Europe, I feel like there's plenty of time for that sort of thing, in my life, and I'm trying to just enjoy the moment where I am.  Like I said, there's a lot to see in Geneva.  For instance, another thing we are planning on doing is going to the CERN Large Hadron Collider.  http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/lhc/lhc-en.html


In other words, SO NERDY I'M GONNA DIE!!  ;{D  Geneva is one of the most delightful places for geeks like me that I have ever been.  All of the museums are free and easily accessible.  In fact, there's a whole lot to like about this town and I'm beginning to suspect that my dislikes for this town have much more to do with the fact that I don't have the nicest accommodations (although, they are okay) and we had some trouble with the internet access, here, when we first got here and I'm getting a little tired of living out of a suitcase and sleeping in a twin bed, none of which really have anything to do with the city, itself.  Admittedly, it's not as friendly and clean and cute as Den Haag, but there's actually something comforting in that, too.  I'm not used to friendly and clean and cute, so this place is probably more my speed.


An interesting development that has oddly occurred to me, since I've been in Europe and away from Chicago, is how much I have accepted Chicago as my home.  The first symptom of this was that the person with whom I have the most in common and with whom I feel the most comfortable also happens to be from Chicago, even if he doesn't live there, now, and the other guy that I became really good friends with is from Indianapolis.  The next thing I noticed was that it REALLY threw my sense of direction to have the large body of water (the North Sea) in The Netherlands to the northwest, not the northeast.  Since we got to Geneva and the lake is in the east, where it belongs, I have had no trouble getting my bearings.  Finally, the weather is been exactly what I expect it to be for this time of year.  So far, it hasn't been a problem that I don't have A/C, here.  Hopefully, that holds true, at least for the rest of the time I'm in Geneva.  It's supposedly going to be super hot in Strasbourg, but I'm trying to take things one day (or at least one city/country) at a time, so I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, I guess.


I suppose my Chicago friends will be pleased to hear that I am accepting that I belong there, as much as I belong anywhere, but I should probably temper that good news with the fact that I'm here, in Europe, making contacts in hopes of landing an internship either, here, in Geneva, or Den Haag, or Brussels, or some other European city with a large number of Intergovernmental Organizations.  So, it's probably about time to move on and find a new home, anyway.  Sorry, Champs.  :P


Anyway, it is now almost midnight, here, and I have to get up and be in class by 9AM, tomorrow, so I should get to bed.  Have a wonderful week, my friends!  I'll try to be more consistent with the posts, but I make no promises, at this point.  See my point above about taking it one day at a time, haha.  


Bisous!
Emily

Thoughts from the First Week at Den Haag

Champs and Heroes,

My apologies for the delay in posting this, I've had blog issues and interwebs troubles and a general craziness that has kept me from writing.  I am taking the day off to get my life in order, today, though, so I thought it was high time I checking in with everyone.  I went pretty much the entire class in The Hague without posting so I'm going to break it up and hopefully catch up on my posting, in the next few days.  Here's the first part.

First off, let me say that I miss all of you VERY VERY much.  Don't worry, though, I'm having a grand time.  I've made some new friends, but more importantly, I WENT TO THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT AND THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE, LAST WEEK!  Yes, yes, the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia has been interesting, but I remember when the ICC was just a pretty dream in the international community, so I have am personally emotionally invested in it.  It was pretty exciting to actually see it, in action.  As for the ICJ, many of you know that that is also a subject that is near and dear to my heart as I have been involved in a few different simulations of that court.

Having said that, I probably should back up a step, and tell you about the ICTY.  The ICTY was established in the mid-1990s, by the UN Security Council, pursuant to Article VII of the UN Charter, which established the mandate of the Security Council, i.e. the protection and furtherance of international peace and security, to address the atrocities committed on all sides when the former Yugoslavia fell into civil war and the republic shattered.  Since then, about 160 individuals, primarily Serbs, but also Croats, Bosnians, and (I think) a few Kosovar Albanians, have been indicted and nearly all of them have stood trial.  Of those, 12 have been acquitted, 64 have been convicted, 36 are currently on trial, and the others have either been referred to the national courts in the Balkans, had their indictments withdrawn, or are deceased. These trials take several years, due to the overwhelming amount of evidence involved in proving not only that the specific atrocities alleged actually occurred, but also that the individual on trial was, in fact, involved in committing them.  Most of the people on trial here are former commanders and politicians, so it is much more likely that they ordered the commission of the various crimes for which they are on trial than that they were physically involved (i.e. that they pulled the trigger).  What that means to those of us who spent almost 2 weeks watching them is that they are exceedingly boring, haha.  

Still, it was pretty exciting to be there and see it in action.  It occurred to me the first day we were there that going into a UN building is kind of like walking into a church.  My thoughts from that first day are as follows:

Thursday, 26 May 2011, Den Haag, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

The colors and symbols are all thematically similar (these were my impressions on the first day, the ICJ, while also church-like, was an entirely different experience, but I'll talk more about that later).  Each participant has his or her role to play and vestments to suit that part.  The colors are UN blue and pale yellow and the decor is dated, at best.  It's interesting that the ICTY is decorated very similarly to the UN building in NYC because the Secretariat building has not been updated since the 1970s and the ICTY building wasn't even used for UN purposes until the mid-late 1990s.

The similarities, however, do not stop at the visible and physical surroundings.  There's a sense of solemnity and the power of people from all walks of life and cultures coming together to serve some higher purpose.  There's also something of an over-explanation of everything that is associated with the concern that everyone fully understand what is happening to what they are agreeing.

Sitting in the observation room outside of the courtroom, I find myself marvelling a little at the fact that I am here.  The man testifying for the defense oddly reminds me a little of my parents.  He and my dad have a lot in common: born the same year, lost a parent at a young age and the other parent remarried, married to an economist (my dad is an economist by training, my mom, by nature), two grown children, the younger of whom is a lawyer.  He looks like a regular father and husband and, yet, here he is, testifying on behalf of two alleged war criminals.  The prosecutor from the ICTY that we met yesterday talked a lot about how these people would not be criminals, at all, but for the war.  They were politicians, professionals, military men, etc., not the kind of people one would expect to see on trial for mass murder, but war does strange things to the paths of everyone involved with mostly tragic consequences.

It's striking that this man has been describing his career history for the past several minutes and it seems not unlike what one might hear in any other criminal trial, anywhere.  I'm not sure what I expected or that I expected anything different, it's just interesting that these trials are not all gut-wrenching testimony from mothers who lost their children or wives who lost their husbands in massacres.

Peter, the prosecutor, mentioned yesterday that the hardest task for the prosecution is to establish a link between the accused and the crime.  When these atrocities were committed, mass graves were still being used by criminals.  These mass graves left such significant disturbances on the land that the physical scars on the landscape could be viewed from satellite photos from space.  These relatively easily located crime scenes assisted the prosecution in the ICTY cases in establishing the existence of the crimes.  Unfortunately, since these trials started, war criminals have gotten smarter and no longer move people to grave sites to massacre them, rather, they just shoot people where they stand and leave the bodies in the streets.  This makes it harder to prove the involvement of the military and political leadership in crimes of genocide and wars against humanity.

One of the defendants in this case (there are two) definitely looks the part, he gives me bad vibes.  Because of the design of the courtroom, the defendants kind of face the observation room.  This courtroom is not like any I've ever seen, and going back to the church theme, for a minute, is oddly similar to a post-Vatican II church-in-the-round.  The tribunal is located where one would expect and the prosecution sits on the right and defense on the left, but that is where the similarities with an American courtroom end.  The witness "stand" if one can call it that, is more like a secretary with two computer monitors and microphones.  The interpreter booths are on either side of the dais and the room is an octagon with the observation room facing the tribunal, directly.  The defendants are on the left side of the room, in stadium seating, directly in front of one of the interpreter booths.

Another unique thing about the nature of these trials is that, in order to speak "in camera" (just the judges and the lawyers), the witness does not have to be removed.  The defense counsel just told him to take his headphones off, and the parties spoke in English.  It's like the UN equivalent of "ear muffs."

There seems to be a lot of detail (to me, at least, it seems to be unnecessary detail) in this testimony.  We have heard from a couple of different staff members and the professor that the length of the trials is a frustration on all sides.  I am trying to remain open-minded about that, though, because I have a couple of different thoughts on it, (1) these trials have something of a dual function, they hold those responsible for these crimes culpable for their actions, (2) they are essentially the first of their kind (Nuremberg and Tokyo, as I understand it, were not really about providing a fair trial for the accused, as they were about legitimizing executing the losers of WWII, deserved or not), (3) thousands of people died over the course of several years and hundreds of square miles in this conflict, we aren't talking about one or two murders, that can be relatively easily confined in space and time.  I think it's dangerous to not keep that in mind when lamenting the time and resources spent on this court.


Friday, 27 May 2011, Den Haag, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

It has been fascinating hearing two prosecutors talk about basically starting this court from scratch and their experiments and successes and failures.  I've found myself both jealous that they got there before me and inspired to continue the good things the people here and at the ICC have started.

One theme that continues to recur to me, over and over, as I watch these trials and listen to the players describe their perspectives is that, regardless of the primary method used, whether it be holding those responsible accountable for their crimes or providing an internationally recognized historical record of the conflict so the victims know its occurrence can never be denied, the sole purpose of the ICTY and it's sister tribunals is to bring healing and means through which all people impacted by these conflicts can begin to move on with their lives in peace and prosperity.  That being the mandate and calling of these courts, any resources committed to both methods are well utilized of their use furthers that purpose.  I understand that the UN has finite (and quite limited) resources and I can appreciate the criticisms of the length of the trials, but it seems to me that it is so important to remember that the focus must be on this healing and not get lost in the details when analyzing the rules of evidence and procedure for their usefulness, effectiveness, and efficiency of the court because this healing should always be the primary and highest goal of international criminal law.

From that perspective, I'm beginning to believe that the way these trials are being run is not so terrible, extensive and drawn out as they may be.  This is not simply a criminal trial, in a traditional sense.  It is also an incredible experiment in diplomacy and inter-connectivity among several different cultures and peoples, therefore, it is for the best that the people involved err on the side of consensus and conciliation, not adversity.  Cultural adversity created the need for these trials, in the first place.  The very fact of their existence is an important step towards vanquishing fascism and national/cultural supremacy movements everywhere.

Any time people are grouped and de-humanized through racial or ethnic or religious or any other kind of group subjugation and persecution, evil wins, and all of humanity loses something vital to whom and what we are.

In wars between peoples, it is necessary to do just this to justify the killing of human beings for tactical or strategic purposes.  Nothing can bring those people back, but having their stories told and officially documented and recognized by the international community, especially in a court setting, where the evidence is weighed and analyzed for truth and proper prioritization, restores their basic humanity and repairs some of the damage done to the dignity of human life, as a whole, as a result of war.

It also forces the people on both or all sides of the conflict to confront, if not to recognize, the fact that the people on the other side are people, just like them, with families and loved ones and vocations and a reason for being in this world which is no more or less than their own.  This is an important step towards healing, after an armed conflict has ended because too often, if not always, resentments among groups simmer for years, in some cases, centuries, and even though the armed conflict in question is over, as long as the degradation of the humanity of the other side continues, peace will always be tenuous at best, and allusive or non-existent at worst.

*Steps off soapbox*

I have a lot more to say about this subject, but I happen to be in Paris, right now (more on that, later), and have to go meet some of my new friends for dinner in the Latin Quarter.  :)

Have a wonderful weekend, my friends, I'll try to post more on my way to Geneva, tomorrow.

Hugs and Kisses!
Emily