Thursday night out

[Yesterday] This morning we had class, The Future of International Criminal Justice. The professor for the class (with us for a short while) is actually the author of the textbook. He is very intelligent and has worked as defense counsel for some of the men on trial in the Yugoslavia Court. After class we visited the Peace Palace. Apparently it was originally called a peace temple and was built with donations from Carnegie. The place is gorgeous. The outside looks something like a church with security, and inside is all marble and works of art. The floor is mainly some kind of mosaic all assembled by hand. The floor is covered in paintings just like a chapel. There were Ming Dynasty vases, incredibly old Indian tapestries (which gave the rooms an odd smell), and a variety of other gifts from countries (including security and building ornaments). Unfortunately pictures inside the Palace are 'verboden.'

We received a presentation from one of the sitting judges of the International Court of Justice, which handles more like civil issues (arbitration and money reparations). The ICJ was started around 1948 and has heard about 100 very large cases. Apparently the ICJ is backed by the UN, and according to the judge no country has outright defied a decision by the ICJ, although the US has come close. Interestingly the ICJ has some teeth in that it can refer matters to the UN security council which could, at least on paper, use force to impose a judgment.

Anyway, I was able to stop by a café for a minute today and have a delicious sandwich with smoked salmon. Everything here comes in smaller sizes. Coke glasses, food, even alcohol is served in smaller servings. Also, the restaurants don’t come to your table unless you ask them to, which is oddly kinda nice. You can sit at your table all day if you wanted to and they would not ask you to leave or buy anything. However this also means the service is very slow, by our standards. At night a group of us went to the center of the city to walk around (the shops stay open late on Thursday night). We eventually ate outside, interestingly all the restaurants have outside seating so all of the seating runs together. We stayed for most of a soccer game between Holland and Camaru. It was fun to see all the people come together to root for their home team, it’s like the super bowl except it lasts a few weeks. The bars here are rowdy but everyone is very respectful. The atmosphere is festive but not hostile. Well, I’m learning a lot and having fun, hope everything is going well at home.