a sea of orange

april 30, 2009:

spent queen's night (evening of april 29th) in the hague. i had my doubts as to how "wild" things would get. i'd been told that it's quite a change from the usual "scene" in the hague. i was totally dubious. and totally wrong. scads of people, more people than i thought lived in the hague emerged in the evening and converged in nearly every nook and cranny in this city. it was quite the spectacle. the crowd was fairly young. an australian friend of E.B.'s call them "ferals". so apt. ferals from god knows where were running around and being rowdies. our group started off strong, but we lost people as we made our way around town. the evening capped off in front of the escher museum where we took a ride on a ferris wheel. super awesome. (the other highlight was the slushy pina colada that came with a flip-flop key-chain. a beverage + a prize!)

got up late on the 30th. met up with E.B. and his friend from work to head into amsterdam at 2 pm. got to amsterdam about an hour later, having traveled in a car on the train that appeared to have no ventilation. thought we might die because oxygen was running out. made it in to the city fine and joined the thousands of people streaming out of amsterdam centraal station into the city. wandered the streets of jordaan and checked out the crazy costumes (orange, orange, orange) and the stuff people were selling on the streets (yard-sale style). saw one super cute dutch girl with pippi longstocking hair playing a mini accordian. omg. so cute. E.B. commented that kids speaking a foreign language always seem cuter, somehow. so true. ended up at a houseboat party that i'd been invited to (one of the other interns threw it on his new houseboat in a'dam) and hung out there for a while. met a whole bunch of new people. wandered back to the train station, after pit-stopping for pommes frites en route (doused in ketchup, not by choice). due to deft footwork by E.B.'s friend, we ended up getting seats on the train. yay. a considerable coup considering that the entire city was emptying out of amsterdam and heading back onto trains at the station. we were in a fairly rowdy car (but by far much better than being at spring break anywhere in north america), but arrived unscathed in den haag. (except that my eardrums were battered by the loudest and most obnoxious couple seen in a very long time).

home sweet hague.

my friend is comedic genius!!

it's so fantabulously great when someone who SO deserves it finally gets their dessert. and what a dessert it is! i'm speaking of my dear, beloved, admired, entirely fantastico HLP (heterosexual life partner), A.W., who had the brilliant, hilarious, mind-bending idea of sending a stripper in her place to her 10-year high school reunion. and then filmed it.

sound hilarious? omg. it's totally crazy good, especially because it's not just funny, but it plays on high school stereotypes. it makes you think. and laugh.

the story is in the globe and mail, so please go check it out!!!

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090428.ASTRIPPER28ART01614/TPStory/?query=andrea+wachner

musings

it's hard to believe i've been here for 2 weeks now! once i end up uploading the pictures on my memory card to my laptop, i'll taken and then post some pictures of my new place. it's a nice highly ikea-ized apartment and i'm planning to have the interns over for drinks next week. this week is "queen's day", which is the birthday not of queen beatrix but of her predecessor. the night before queen's day is supposed to be a wild, raucous time in the hague (the hague knows how to party - woo woo). and april 30th, queen's day, is more of a statutory holiday/family time. one of the other interns lives in amsterdam and just moved onto a houseboat. he's invited us over for drinks on his boat. should be fun. have already had visitors. J.P. was in town this past weekend. she spent 1 night here and then i went with her to amsterdam for a night. it was a lot of fun, walking around amsterdam. we stayed in a super dingy, old room (old like broken pane of glass, scuffs on the wall, no shower curtain). the company more than made up for the crappy accommodations. funny because the weekend before, S.S. and her boyf M.P. were in amsterdam and they stayed in the same hotel. they got a nice new room though. i'm going to cork, ireland this weekend to visit with N.O. who is "home" in cork for a family wedding. i've not spent any meaningful time in ireland and am excited for N.O. and his dad showing me around. i really ought to spend a weekend in the hague soon. there's just too many nearby places to visit. and i'm in europe for such a short time. boo.

don't let that deter any future visitors. i love visitors. i love seeing people i know and love here. the only downside is that you leave and then i'm kind of lonesome again. the evenings here are a bit grim. this week being the exception because of queen's night.

well, i'm endeavouring to write more. it seems that nothing happens. the only interesting stuff is at work, which i can't tell you about. alas.

must go hunt and forage for dinner.

miss you, yeah, especially you.

keeping up with the kumars

i was worried that i'd be in the dark ages of bollywood during my time in den haag. but, not to worry. i'm watching a show right now on Den Haag TV (DHTV) called Hindi Music.NL which is, in the vein of all hindi programming outside of India, an hour-long advertisement for Bollywood. now i know i'll never be alone here. at least four times a week, i can tune in to be with my people.

omg - futuristic bollywood romance film called "Love Story 2050" coming out this summer!!

home, home in den haag

i found a place to live!

tonight is my first night chez moi. i miss E.B., but i'm sure he's delighted to have his place back again. plus i spent the night hanging with him and some of his friends, so he can't miss me too much. my new place comes with a bike, but the lock is some sort of james-bond-style intense thing, so i haven't been able to figure it out yet.

also, J.H. forwarded an article from the NYT about how dutch bikes are hip in NYC. well, i have a bona fide dutch bike here in the land o' the dutch. how bleeding edge is that? once i figure out how to lock & unlock it, i'll be golden.

my apartment is on dunne bierkade, which means: "thin/skinny beer quay" and fronts a canal. it's a "grittier" area of the hague, which in hague terms means there is some trash on the ground and a couple of rowdy drunks come out at midnight.

the buildings on this street are 17th century and some dutch painters -- jan steen & jan van goyen -- lived here. also, apparently, spinoza wrote "ethics" somewhere around the corner from this street (and is buried nearby at the Nieuwe Kerk).

history lesson over. good night.

day 1

allergies!
why do you vex me!!
i'm grossing out my gracious host, E.B., by snotting and snorting and sneezing (triple S threat) all over his lovely apartment.

seriously, this is bad news. it's pollen galore here. i thought i'd have escaped the worst of it on account of having left sacha the cat, but not to be.

day 1 was great. mishaps: didn't get my security badge due to some mix-up. didn't find a cell phone SIM card place due to the fact that everything closes here victoria-time. misawesomes: met my boss - he's great. met my fellow work-mates. 2 canadians + me = 3. we're rocking the international law scene. one italian super nice guy + a few others i haven't met yet. got my first legal assignments. very interesting, cutting-edge stuff. found out i can wear jeans, have flexible hours so long as the work gets done (as it should be) and work from a few different places - the beach building (which has an awesome view, small cafeteria), the main building (no view, better cafe, library), coffee shops (so long as i make sure my stuff isn't splayed out all over the place) and peace palace library (which is beautiful). or home. once i find one.

all in all, very good work conditions. oh, except the no pay bit. well, i need to pay my work for free / at poverty line dues, after living the glamourous, big city, buying tickets from scalpers life in the apple (of my eye).

more soon.
xoxo

den haag!

after an absence, i'm back on the blog. let's hope it lasts awhile. my packing process was quite a humourless experience, except that i had to push back my flight to toronto 3 times because i was so far from finished packing. it's really tragic how far my assumptions about time were from the reality of time. egad. anyway, my time in toronto was short, but sweet. by short, i mean 28 hours short. the flight to amsterdam was great, met E.B. at the airport and we took the train back together. how great for me since i had two heavy suitcases, including big bertha - my giant suitcase that always remains 10 lbs overweight not matter what i do. should try weight watchers for luggage. schlepped my stuff up to E.B.'s top floor of walk-up apartment (with his help of course). today is not my start-date as i believed it to be. tomorrow, 9 am, at the administration building and i get my first assignment tomorrow afternoon. yep, they're really just going to throw me in there. wonderful. am on skype now people, so find me at my full firstnickname (not the one that ends in -want) on skype if you want to free chat with me. [isn't my attempt to mask my identity and thus protect my privacy laughable. hahahaha].

will write more later. am going out for dinner with P.S. and his ladyfriend, S.

miss everyone & nyc, which is like a living, breathing, annoying, loveable person to me.