Sand in my Shoes

The focus of my trip isn't the same as when it started. Several weeks ago, I had thought that I was going to be occupying most of my time sightseeings and trying to see as much of Europe as possible, but that's not the case anymore. I've come to realize that some of my favorite days here are spent doing the simple things like playing soccer, biking down the boardwalk, and just spending time with the great people on this trip. I'm not saying everyone's my best friend, but I have to say that we have a balanced mix.

The past few days have been full of the little things. Tues we took a trip to the MC Escher Museum which i have to say was A M A Z I N G. I'm an Escher nut, so don't mind me :-) I've always liked his geometric in an odd way because it's amazing the way he played with angles and perspectives. And it had a really cool interactive exhibit that was a lot of fun to play with, hence the pictures above. I'm still debating if I should go see the famous "girl with the pearl earring" painting that's here in the Hague.

But besides that, yesterday being Thursday night, practically the entire group went out to a local trivia night which was only fun because our group of 20 loud Americans were so lost with the European skewed questions. The best was when there was a question about which angel brought down the Quran, and my team was in an uproar bc I was the only Muslim there hehehe. Needless to say we got that question right...

Today was our midterm review (YES we're half way done!) and then later on this afternoon a few of us went out to play soccer. We had a friendly Netherlands vs. US game. 4 of us in our mid 20s against 10 / 13 yr olds. Needless to say, it was such a different style of playing, but it was fun. We just had to get a bit aggressive bc they were content just slowly dribbling the ball around, which frankly was boring us who were concerned with fast play and a whole lot of shooting. No, we weren't pushing the little kids around, they were too good for that. Talk about foot work. wow.

Once we got tired of the slow play we headed over to the beach and played a bit of ultimate frisbee. Good thing too, because sliding to catch the Frisbee on sand doesn't hurt at all compared to doing the same thing on the grass. I know bc I was in the sand 3 times. Resulted in sand falling out of my scarf when I got home too. Good times :-) I was just happy I was finally playing a sport I could honestly do well in. Soccer is definitely not my forte, but Frisbee I can do.

All in all, it was great. Good laugh, good sand, well ok not so good sand when u're covered it in, but good times. And it was all free (ok, except the museum).

I am getting really excited about ammi and papa coming here next weekend. It'll be great bc they're arriving on my bday (yay!) and then we're going to hopefully spend the weekend between Belgium and Paris.

Besides that, I'm loving my international criminal law class and can't wait till we visit the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). We're going to be observing a real proceeding! Yay! maybe not so exciting for the non IL nerds, but I think it's cool. Especially bc my ideal job would be working as a prosecutor for the ICTY / ICTR (same thing for Rwanda)

So, now time for some reading so that I'm not completely behind tomorrow when Natalie, Usha and I take a day to go visit Rotterdam, just another Dutch city with a WINDMILL!! yea, I'm crazy about windmills...see ya!