I thought i was so unbelievably smart starting up a blog. No need for groups emails, people can keeps tabs and voila i’m an excellent travel correspondent. Part of keeping a blog is actually writing regularly, i’m sure this fact is obvious to most people. Not I apparently. But here it is concerted effort numero uno.

I am currently in London but more about that next time.

Why I love studying in Holland #1:

Class field trips include a visit to the International Criminal Court.

So my Thursday involved getting up before 8 for the first time in ages and jumping on a train to Den Haag (for those of you playing at home it’s The Hague, I’m sorry my dutch is just so good that it just slips into my English) and going to the ICC and then popping up two floors to the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Beyond cool. Well there is nothing cool crimes against humanity. I know a lot of you don’t share my love for international institutions and aren’t feeling my excitement. It was like being in Disneyland but for nerds (and no rollercoasters). We saw the Katanga case at the ICC, Germaine Katanga was a former leader of the Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri (DRC) charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity and we saw the Taylor case in the Special Court for Sierra Leone. We actually saw Charles Taylor being questioned by his defence council. Charles Taylor was the former Liberian president who was arrested while he was still Prez. If he is convicted (of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity) he will be the first head of state to be convicted of these crimes. Milosevic died in custody before his verdict was handed down. We also got briefed by a senior attorney on the Prosecution team for the Taylor case. Then we were briefed by Judge Steiner working on the Sudan cases. big day out.

Bike update:

Still needs a new chain, tyres need to be patched up, still need to saw the old lock off. Still not sure if the breaks work. But hey you get what you pay for.

Peace out.