One week left.

Sweet Fancy Moses! It is cold outside. The beautiful Dutch weather has hit us yet again. The sun has made a brief appearance Saturday, but other than that it has been cold as ice, quite literally. The fountain out in front of the Tribunal froze over today, it was so damn cold. Luckily I only got a week of this left. Unfortunately, I also only have a week left here. As my time here comes to a close, I realize that I'm really going to really miss this place and all the good folk I've met here. Many of my good friends have left recently and the rest of the interns are trickling out this week, so the Tribunal was eerily quiet, as most of the interns bailed out on Friday.
As for this weekend, it was rather uneventful, save for a short trip down to Delft for a bit. I figured, so long as I am in Holland, I should see some local things. It was an interesting little village with a couple of nice churches and the grave of Hugo Grotius, the Godfather of international law. I couldn't let my time here pass without seeing him.


I told you it was literally cold as ice.



One of the two churches in the town square. The steeple appears to have been burned at some point


The other church


The monument to Mr. Grotius and me looking like a jackass.


It took some searching, but I finally found a pair of clogs big enough to fit me.


Another church in the town. This place was very densely packed with places of worship.


The Dutch know how to lay some bling on their bicycles.

And I am out on that note. More to come from my last week, assuming I survive the going away festivities. But, if I have survived three separate Serb parties, I think I can handle this week.

More to come.

I always suspected HTM was trying to kill me.

Ever since my bicycle was stolen, I have been forced to use the public transportation system in the Hague, Hague Transit Management (HTM). This was supposed to be temporary, as I had intended to purchase a new bike as soon as a cheap one was available, but alas, one never came about.
But on with the story, Ever since I started regularly riding the bus and tram here, I have noticed that the time schedule posted on each stop was in no way related to when they would actually arrive at the stop. Due to these irregularities, I have frequently had to wait for upwards of a half hour for a damn bus, as the busses are much more inaccurate than the trams, time wise. Being as soft as I am, I want no part of standing in the cold that long and I know that as soon as I start to walk where I need to be, the bus will show up, so I always wait.
Because of all this lateness, I had assumed the people of HTM were, naturally, out to get me. They had been subtle about it for months, occasionally giving me hope by sending a bus just a few minutes after I got to the stop. Although, more often than I care to count, a bus would pull away just before I get to the stop and the bus driver always ignores my flailing arms and cries to stop. But, alas, these were all suspicions, until Monday.
Monday, I was heading to a movie with some friends, so naturally I took the bus. Seats were scarce, so I took one at the very back. For background, it is necessary to know that the normal HTM busses have three doors, on in front to get on and one each in the middle and the back for exiting. Because I was seated at rear of the buss, I chose the rear exit. Well, supposedly, the bus driver did not notice that I was back there, so at the stop, he opened both exit doors, but the rear door opened and closed very quickly, lodging me in the door. One would think, as a safety mechanism, the doors would reopen with a bit of pressure against them, and I'm sure Boudreaux would back me up here. But, the Dutch will have none of that. The doors were tightly closed on me and wouldn't budge, no matter how hard I pushed. Finally, the driver heard my cries for help and opened the doors again, setting me free at last, thank god almighty.
This driver feigned remorse and apologized, but I know he was part of the greater HTM conspiracy to destroy me.