Greetings world! Ms. Raychel asked me if I was going to blog during my trip to the Hague and was disappointed when I implied that I would not. But I figure it's the easiest way to update everyone and there have been all sorts of exciting things to share!
So here it goes! (Apologies for any weird formatting. It's been 2 1/2 years...) Blogworthy things:

1) For those of you who don't know or forgot, I'm at the Hague in the Netherlands for the month of June. It's the home of many international courts, but it's also a city. The home of the Dutch government is here. I live very close to the Department of Justice, where recently some sort of protest over imprisonment has been happening, and the Parliament is a short walk away. They're both really amazing buildings. I'll take pictures and post them maybe this weekend. (I make no guarantees.) I'm studying abroad through my law school - American University Washington College of Law (WCL). We go to class Monday-Thursday from 9-12:50 (yes, it's long) and are taking two classes: International Criminal Law and International Approaches to Terrorism. Then once a week we also go on field trips to see the different international courts. We have two professors with us from WCL. One is helping me pick out a topic for my upcoming 60-page paper for Law Review, and the other gave me lunch when I was starving yesterday and we were on a tight schedule. In other words, they're both awesome and will save you when you're in a bind. Interestingly, our professors do not teach our classes. For each class we have a guest lecturer, who is either a professor or academic in the field or an international judge. I have really loved this aspect of the program, as it keeps us on our toes and exposes us to different viewpoints and styles of teaching.

2) At the beginning of July, I will be going to Sarajevo in Bosnia, which was a part of the former Yugoslavia. I'm going there because this summer I'm doing an internship during which I will be gathering the legal history of the war crimes tried in the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (one country) under national law. It will be interesting to compare the national court to the workings of the International Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which is a hybrid court here in the Hague that tries war crimes under their own statute, as governed under international law. (I'll have more to say about that after I visit that court on Monday!)

3) I really like the Hague. I had only been to Amsterdam before on a weekend trip and the Hague is quite different and smaller. Admittedly I wasn't too sure about this town when I first got here. It's on the North Sea, so it's rainy and cold a lot. However, over the past week, I've adjusted to this crazy June weather and appreciate the following things thus far,

   a) They sell cream with ibu profen over the counter at the drug store. For those of you familiar with  the 1+ year saga of the misdiagnosed hands, this stuff is a MIRACLE. My nutritionist told me about it before I left. For some reason it's only sold with a prescription in the US. But just imagine, there's something I can put right on the pain and it goes away! It probably would not have been helpful when I was in the midst of the Vitamin B6 toxicity, which had more to do with nerve pain, but it's definitely helpful now. (General update on the hands: Now apparently my levels are normal. If anyone would like to call the doctor and tell them for the third time that I would like my results mailed to me, that would be fantastic, because I don't know the numbers. But anyway, as a result now I get pain when I overuse them, like repetitive strain injury. I've noticed that if I hand write for 35 minutes here they start hurting. So they're at like 70%, but SO much better than before.)And I love this ibu profen hand cream!

     b) I'm just really happy to be back in Europe. I love the really old architecture contrasted against the really modern. I love the style of clothes. I love their public transportation systems and how much everyone bikes. I love the fresh croissants.

     c) The weather vacillates a lot, but on a given day this goes from rainy and cold to really nice. So when the weather is nice, it's perfect - not too hot and not humid. I've found that the rain is nice for napping. Best of both worlds. And there's a lot of greenery and pretty plants.


That's all for now since I can't type for too long. But I will try to update more regularly. There are many more interesting things I have to write about besides hand cream and weather.