First day of School!!

Today was our first day of class. Vladeck, one of the two professors on the program, was nice enough to come up to the beach house and walk us to school. I just realized that I still haven’t explained how this program works. Our school began this program in collaboration with the Asser Institute here in Den Hague. To be honest, no one really knows what the Asser Institute does, it just seems like a research institution. They apparently work with the Institute of Social Science to arrange our housing. I’m guessing the ISS is more of a college or graduate school type organization. So, if anyone is to blame about our crappy housing, it’s ISS. Our program coordinators repeatedly tell us they won’t work with ISS again after this mess. What I don’t understand is why they can’t at least compensate us in some other way. Money for public transportation would be nice. If you can’t tell, I’m still a bit better about the housing situation.

Anyways, back to class. The program has two classes, one in International Criminal Law, and the second is called International Legal Approaches to Terrorism. Both sounded incredibly interesting, and even more so because each and every class is going to be taught by a guest lecturer. Today our first lecture was taught by a judge from the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. I have to say, it was really impressive to be sitting in the same room, and actually hearing from a real judge!! But I have to say, regardless of how interesting it was, four hours of lectures are long. Especially for someone as fidgety as me. After about forty minutes of lecturing I can’t focus anymore. Just give me five minutes to stand up and I swear I get more out of it. Yea, I’m as focused as five year old, it’s crazy.

After our four hours of class, some of us decided to go hunt for bikes. Constantly in our program guide they told us buying / renting bikes were in expensive and would make life more convenient. Unfortunately, buying a bike was a bit overrated. Neither could anyone tell us where to buy one, but even at one place, the cheapest bike was 95 Euros. AND it was held together with duct tape. So yea…

I was very fed up at this point. We had spent a total of 4 hours, traveling / hunting for two bike shops. At the end of the four hours, I just ended up back at the first bike shop renting a bike for the month. But I have to say, that first ride I had on the bike made it all worth it in the end. Something about biking just makes me feel better, no matter how crappy or long my day may be. It made it all worth it in the end : - )

I think I may finally begin to enjoy this place. As long as I don’t bike into a car or a tree that is. Time to do that reading that I'm supposed to so diligently do..