The Big B-Day Weekend

Saturday we had to go to the outdoor market to get Twiga food and a little food for us just like every weekend. We got bread, cheese, apples, kiwi, and pineapple for us and a lot more food for Twiga...she eats better than the family does.Once we got home and got all the food put away we choose to stay home instead of going to Delft like originally planned because it was raining so we stayed home and...cleaned...not just a little pick up here a little dusting there but really scrubbing every where till it was all shiny and sparkly...I HATE TO CLEAN...but my Aunt wanted the house to be clean on her B-Day so I cleaned. That night we talked to my Bestemom and I got to talk to my girlfriend...I miss them...finally around 12 we went to sleep...I love sleep. It was not a riveting day, but I guess every day can't be a super exciting one. Sometimes you have to have the necessary days.

Today instead of going to church we slept in till 10...YAY! At around 1 we went into The Hague city center to get to my Aunts hair cut. She wanted to have a new hair cut for her birthday tomorrow. Once that was over we walked around for a little then decided to get some tea and sit for a little. Then around 5 we walked to the Japanese restaurant that I was taking my Aunt to for her birthday dinner. It's one of my Aunt's favorite restaurants in The Hague and she loves sushi (YUCK!!). She and my Bestamom went there over the summer and so my Bestamom gave me the idea that I should take my Aunt there for her birthday. She got sushi and wine while I got some beef and a Heineken. I'm pretty sure mine was better then hers but she won't admit that, so I just let her think what she wants. I know better! ;-)

Then we had to head home because we have to get up really early tomorrow. I am going with my Aunt to her work tomorrow because the hearing is in the morning and I have to go to it.

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An Average Friday in Den Haag

Living here in Holland for a while now, I have a few observations.

I have noticed that it rains more often then not but I guess that is what happens when you live in the sea. So let me explain that. The Dutch reclaimed Holland from the sea centuries ago by constructing an intricate system of dijkes which build up walls in order to keep the water back. So in a certain way, we are actually living in the sea.

I have also noticed that people her are not very nice or helpful where as when I was in London they were very helpful and nice. To me it almost seems like people here are looking for a reason to yell at you or glare at you and act like they are perfect and you are below them and just a wast of there time. This is not an attractive quality of Dutch people. Lighten up guys!!

Biking is very popular here and is one of the main ways to get around, but a lot of the bikes are not like the ones in the states. They are the really old ones that you would rarely see in the states (though I must admit my Bestemom has one that looks like it came from here). My bike is a mountain like the bikes in the states so I think it is better then the old bikes that most people ride here.

I also don't think I have seen a day here that has not had clouds. I guess that kind of goes with the bad weather thing.

London - Day Three

Today is our last day in London. We had so much to do that we had to get going right away. We got up really early to go see the the things that we missed. First we got on one of those famous red double decker buses and headed to Piccadilly Circus, which is a big square with stores and a big billboard - sort of like in NY Times Square. We walked around there for a while looking at the touristy stuff, shops and stuff, and got our ever important Starbucks.

Then we went to the National Art Gallery which had a lot of really cool art. I got to see several really cool things on our fast run through, one of them was a sketch by Davinci and also one of Monets waterlilies. Next door to the National Art Gallery we went to The National Portrait Gallery we saw a lot of cool portraits. All the portraits are of important UK citizens who have had an impact on the world. One that I thought to be really weird was a scientist that had a bunch of his DNA cells in a container as his portrait...that's weird right?

Last but not least for the day was Spitifields Market, on the East End of London close to where where we were for the Jack the Ripper tour where we met up with Tanya again. At that point, we split up for about an hour so my Aunt and Tanya could talk and catch up over coffee and I got to look at the Banksy store and that area which was really cool. The market has a lot of vintage type shops and one of the cars that Banksy tagged is displayed in an alley in the area. It is the ghost car...that is a car that he had tagged "Death" on the window.

When we met up again we went to a chicken food place and ate there...it was really good...then we got our stuff from Tanya's house and went to the airport and again it took 5 or 6 hours to get home. We got home finally, in the middle of the night and fell right asleep.

London Baby - Day Two

We got up and went to Starbucks this morning and then headed right over to the Globe Theater to go on the tour of the place. We figured that since we couldn't actually see a play there we could at least take a tour. They taught us all about how they constructed it, just like the original Globe in Shakespeare's day....even with a thatched roof (they said that they had to get special permission for thatched roofs since they were banned in London after the original Globe burned down). While on the tour we got to see the stage close up and we got to see the gentleman's box (where the wealthy people sat). The King or Queen would sit right behind the stage to show that they were better off then everyone else. Then even though we knew that they didn't have tickets for "The Merchant of Venice" we went to the box office and asked again to see if there were any cancellations. They told us we could go out front and wait in the line to see if somebody that had extras would sell them...so we went out there and got in the line and without much trouble we got some really good tickets so we ended up getting to go see the play.

The Merchant of Venice is about a business man that barrows money from another man (who is from the Jewish quarter) and then loses his fortune when his ships don't come in (literally). The agreement that he has with the lender is that if he can't pay back his debt, the man from the Jewish quarter can take a pound of his flesh. It was a really good play and I am SO glad that we were able to get tickets. My Aunt says that if Shakespeare is done poorly, it can be really bad, but if its done well, it can be really good. This was really good! She has seen another Shakespeare play here before (Romeo and Juliette) and she really liked that one too. So, if anyone is ever in London....I would highly recommend seeing a play here!

By the time we got out of the play, it was 5pm. We spent nearly the whole day there! So, we had to get moving fast. We walked down the river and went across the Westminster bridge to put us directly in front of Big Ben, West Minster Abbey, and Parliament. There, we met up again with Tanya and walked to Buckingham palace. I had fun doing that but I really liked what we did after that.

We headed over to the London towers and after it was dark we took a Jack The Ripper tour. The tour takes you to the places that he killed his victims. It was really creepy and two people fainted. The tour guide explained all about the 1800's and how the city of London was back then. The murders happened in the fall of 1833 there was the industrial revolution going on and the east end of the city (where the murders happened) were all slums. He killed prostitutes, and there were a LOT of prostitutes in those years because the city was in a major depression. It was definitely creepy but also so cool to learn about.

London Baby - Day One

Today we got up and got ready and then went to Starbucks. They don't have Starbucks in Holland and my Aunt craves her Chai tea from there, so whenever she goes to London she is constantly in Starbucks. So, even though I don't get Starbucks much in the States we went for a Starbucks run at least twice a day this weekend.

After getting our fill of coffe, tea and hot chocolate (mainly for me it was a huge amount of whipped cream), we headed over to the Globe Theater to get tickets to see a Shakespeare play. I was really bummed to find out that they were sold out. The Globe theater was built near the site of the original globe theater that Shakespeare used during his day (it burned down....TWICE!) I was really thinking it would be cool to see Shakespeare there.

We went to the Tate Modern museum next and looked at all the modern art stuff. I really don't think that all of the stuff hanging in there can be called "art". Like a big canvas with a big red dot on it and I'm supposed to be impressed?? There were some WEIRD things in there. There were two tubes with bubbles coming out of them (like a fountain of bubbles or something). And, there was a really weird display that was in a room....you could only have 8 people in the room at a time, and there were birds in a cage (live birds) and sand on the floor, and thatched huts all around and when you went in the hut there was some weird TV playing that made no sense at all.

However, there were also some cool pieces of art in the museum. We saw some of the pieces that started the modern art ara, like Picasso and the impressionist movement. And, there were some paintings that I thought were cool. They had some comic stuff that I liked.

We got a snack at the museum cafe (I was HUNGRY). Then we walked across the Millennium bridge. It was built (can you guess) for the millennium (that would be the year 2000), and it is a pretty cool looking bridge.

By the time we left there it was getting pretty late actually, so we went back to Tanya's house where we were staying and met up with her. She took us on a walking tour and showed me some Banksy's that are still around. Banksy is a tag artist that is amazingly good at what he does. He goes all over the world and has never been caught, most of his work has a political meaning to it even if its not completely obvious. My Aunt first introduced me to Banksy's art a year ago or so and got me some pieces that are in my room back in California. I really like his work and really wanted to find original pieces around the city, so it was so cool to be able to go and see it on the walls around London.

The first one we saw was an ATM that had a robotick arm coming out of the money slot and it was picking up a littel girl.

The next ones we saw were a boy with a paint brush and a paint can that had just painted a heart on the wall. Then, right next to it, we saw a new one (the others have been published in books or have had prints made out of them, so you know that they have been around for a while, but this one, I had never seen before). It had a monkey with a sign on him that said "I'm With Stupid ->" and Mr. Bush was next to it. The last one we saw was a thug rolling a blunt...but I couldn't get a good photo of it because by then it was almost dark and the painting was under a bridge so it was impossible to get a photo. It was my favorite part of the day.

Finally my Aunt decided we might need to eat (how can she keep forgetting about food??) For dinner we headed to a pub and I got a hamburger and a Guinness beer. My Aunt didn't think I would like Guinness, because she thought it would be too heavy, but I liked it just fine.

So, all in all, a pretty full day for our first day in London. I was really excited to see the Banksy, but pretty disappointed to miss out on Shakespeare. Now, I'm just exhausted from all the walking and ready to sleep!

To London

Last night we were supposed to go on this Hash run thing. It is a running group that they have in most cities around the world where each week they do a different route that is marked with different symbols to tell you were to run. The course is made to trick all the fast people. However, we didn't do it. This was for a few reasons, 1)it was freezing cold and rainy, 2) my Aunt was totally dreading it, but came along with me because she knew I wanted to do it, an 3) because when we got there the people waiting to do it looked mainly all old and definitely weird, so my aunt and I went to really good 5 Euro pizza place instead.

Today I spent an hour and a half talking to Amy on the phone and waiting for my Aunt to get home. At her lunch break we went to the store and bought Mel and Shamim flowers (they are both friends of my Aunt's and they both had birthdays). Mel is the neighbor who lives upstairs from us, and our dog Twiga REALLY likes her. She is taking care of Twiga this weekend while we are in London. Then my Aunt went back to work and I cleaned up the house a little and packed for the trip to London. Then at two when my Aunt got home she told Mel all the important things about taking care of Twiga and then we headed to the airport.

The flight from Amsterdam to London takes 45 min but the total time it took to get there was 5 or 6 hours...way too long. (this is because you have to take a train, to the central station, another train to the airport, get to the airport two hours early for security, get on the flight, fly to London, then take another train into Waterloo station in London and then take the tube to where we were staying). When we finally got to Waterloo station, we went over to an Indian food place for some dinner and met up with her friend Tanya, who we will be staying with. The Indian food was so good. I can't wait to explore London tomorrow!

This Weekend

This weekend was really fun, We stayed in The Hague for the weekend and just hung out. That was nice because we haven't really done that since I arrived.

On Saturday morning we woke up and went to the farmer's market near my Aunt's house. She buys most of her food for the week here so we rode our bikes there and shopped. There is a lot of fresh produce and vegetables and chicken and bread and cheese. After that, I got to go to the bookstore in the downtown with my Aunt and her friend Eleni for coffee and breakfast. They talk so much that after a while I was really bored, so I got to leave them there talking and walk around on my own for about an hour...but I had fun so it's ok. The best thing that happened was riding the bike with my Aunt to the book store and back because she can't ride a bike well at all. It's funny to watch but hard to ride with her.

Once we got home we cleaned the house. On Sunday we biked to a church that is supposed to have a good youth group (no I'm not cheating on my youth group at St. Mathews) but they only meet every other Friday but they do things during the week so I might do that some time next week. Then we went to my Aunt's friend's house for a birthday party. The party was OK but the best part was the BBQ at the end. I got to cook and the food was so good. I ate a LOT...chicken kebabs are about the best invention in the whole universe!

baby sit'n and taxi rides

The first week without Bestemom here has gone just fine...a little sad but fine. Today I helped my Aunt babysit her friends kids ages 1 and 2. Luckily she did all the baby sitting while I went to get food. When I got back with the food we...(OK she)...put them to bed. We spent the rest of the time eating...Shwarma...YAY Shwarma its so good. It is a type of food from Turkey and I haven't ever seen it before in the States, but it is all over Europe at donor kebab places. They have turkish pizza and this thing that in Dutch is called kip donor (it is sliced juicy chicken in a pita bread and it is SO good). Then we just watched movies for the night until my Aunt's friends came home. Finally around 12:24 they came home...totely smashed. They said that if we ran we could catch the last bus back to our house, but when we got to the bus stop there was no bus that ran at that time so we had to get a cab. This was the first cab I have ever been in...it was fun.

My PE Here Is So Much Better Then In The States

So here in Holland I don't really have PE so my Aunt made up a PE class for me. I have only had PE class once so far, but it rocks! I get to take the morning off school and ride my bike to the skate park and skateboard. I suck at skating so its nice to skate when there is nobody there. I leave around 9:30 or 10 and get there at about 10 or 10:30. I skate till 11:30 and then head home to be back by 12. The skate park is half metal and half cement but still really nice to ride on. I just wish I could drop in (for those of you that don't know what that is it is when you start at the top of a half pipe...U...or a quater pipe half of the half pipe and ride down and in to the half pipe) because that would make my life so simple when skating. While skating I also learned that I suck more then I thought and that I need to practice more. But I had fun so it was all good. When I get back to the States I'm going to try to get a membership to the skate park by my school and start practising again.

The School Routine

So we started a school routine today so that I do my school stuff...I don't really want to but it is necessary.

I wake up around 8ish and get ready for the day. This involves making the bed, showering, take the dog out for a walk, getting breakfast etc. (all the normal morning activities). Then I sit in my aunts room at a desk and do school work from 9 till 12:30 1:00 ish when she gets home for lunch. Then we walk the dog, eat some lunch and check the work that I have done so far and I get my afternoon assignments. She heads back to work around 2ish, and I have from 2 till she gets home from work to finish up the afternoon work. (she says she gets home by 5:30 6:00 ish but it really tends to be more like 6:30 7:30ish). When she gets home we walk the dog again and maybe wach a little TV and check my school work. Then we eat and talk and then go to sleep...wow...that is how most days are...how boring!!

Bye Bye Bestemom

Saturday was a sad day because we were driving my Bestemom to Frankfurt to send her on a plane back to the States the next day, but we still managed to have fun while trying to find the hotel. Naturally I sat in the car while the family went in to check in and up to the room really fast. They said the room was big but I didn't really believe them fully. Then we went to this authentic German restaurant and got what we thought was going to be just a small meal. It ended up with me eating some of my Bestemoms because she couldn't finish hers...I LOVE FOOD IN GERMANY!!! (I cannot stress this point enough).

After dinner we went back to the hotel and I found out that they weren't kidding about the size of the room, it was as big as the living room at my Aunt's house if not bigger...I liked it.

The next day was really sad because we took my Bestemom to the airport and she was sad which made it even worse. We got her through the lines and the security checkpoint and then headed out on our way back to Holland. Even though we were both bummed out, my Aunt was very very sad, and I felt bad for her...she kept tearing up all day. I guess it's kind of hard to live in Europe when your family is so far away and you don't get to see them very much.

Then it was just us heading back to my Aunt's house...well Twiga was there too. We went to this church we had seen on the way up...it was so cool looking and it looked like a castle from the Autobon. Tomorrow we start our regular routine and I have to start working on my school work...summer is officially OVER ;(

The Beach

Here in The Hague there is a beach that is about 20 min away from my Auntes house in Voorburg. It's what the Dutch would call a resort town and they all go down there during the summer. This beach is different than the ones that I know however. For one, the beach is part of the North Sea...but then again, so is the rest of the Netherlands. The Netherlands is mostly under sea level and we are here because a long time ago the Dutch "reclaimed" the land from the sea. They did it by building all these dams and stuff which is why there are all these cannals everywhere. So, there are all these walls and gates under and around us that are holding back the sea. It's weird and I can't figure out why they decided to do that in the first place. It's not like its overpopulated....they could have just lived on the land that they had. Anyway...my Aunt always complains about The Hague and the weather and the flat land, and sometimes she says, "Why would anyone reclaim this land....give it back to the sea!".

I have now been to the beach two times but its nothing like a nice Californian beach where it is nice and sunny and the water is nice. It was fun to go though because it was still a beach and because it IS the North sSea and to me that is cool. The first time we went to the beach we got pics of all of us there...my Aunt lookes cold and miserable in the photos, but my Bestemom loved it. A fews days after our first trip , my Bestamom wanted to go again, so we drove down with Twiga. The second time I went we walked around on the beach. I walked in the water which was cold at first but then it was fine...so that my Bestemom could get pics of me there and she loved it even more that time. Then we walked around on the board walk and ate Poffergies. It's fun down there, but I kind of agree with my Aunt, I miss a real beach like San Diego.

my bike

Last night we went into The Hague city center to meet one of my Aunt's closest friends in the Netherlands, Eleni. She was very nice. We all went to Vapiano's which is a really good pizza place. I got a pizza and beer for dinner...it was soooo good...I love pizza.

Today we went to another of my Aunt's friends (Shamim's) house for lunch. All her friends are lawyers like her who work at the International Criminal Court, so you might think that they are boring, but so far, they are not boring at all. Shamim's place was really nice, they had just moved in and the house was really close to the beach and also close to where I was picking up my bike...another of my Aunt's friends had an extra and is letting me borrow it while I'm staying here. After the lunch we drove over to the house with the bike and my Bestemom and I were dropped off and got the bike then walked home...that was a 3ish mile walk but we only had one bike so we had to bike. Two hours later we got home...that was a long walk but I got a bike so it was ok. And, now I have a bike...and this means freedom!

The Hearing

Today I went to watch my aunt while she was in court. Not on trial as a defendant or anything, but she is a lawyer. She is working on the first case to go before the United Nations International Criminal Court and this hearing today was the very first one before the Trial Chamber. The person on trial is Thomes Lubanga he is in trouble for recruiting kids to be soldiers. He is from the Congo in Africa.

When we got there, we weren't sure where to go, but our names were on a VIP reserved list as guests of my Aunt and so we had seats in the front row. There is glass in between the visitors gallery where we were and the actual Courtroom itself where my Aunt and all the participants were sitting. The glass is bullet proof to protect the people inside....its a lot different than the courtrooms I've seen on TV in the US, and a lot more modern with computers and technology all over the place. There are TV monitors in the gallery and because the trial happens in a lot of different languages, there are head sets for people to wear and there are interpretors in a booth to the side who translate what is happening in the Courtroom immediately into all the different languages. I didn't know how to work the head set so I didn't understand half of what was happening because it was in French but apparently if you put the Chanel up one it was all in English. My Aunt laughed at us later for not knowing that, but how was I supposed to know that, nobody told us how to use them.

It was still cool to watch my Aunt wear that big black robe...even though all she really did was sit there and talk to her friend...what a slacker. Then at the end I found out that Thomes Lubanga, the defendant was in there to but he looked like a lawyer to me till I found out it was him. My Bestemom had taken the paper that said what was happening that they gave us when we first went into the gallery. Supposedly it was an agenda for the hearing, but she didn't let me see it even though I was the one who got it. She put it away for safe keeping because she was excited to see my Aunt's first day of Court at the ICC. She has worked for other international tribunals like the Rwanda Tribunal but since this was the first hearing at the ICC, my Bestamom was excited.

The hearing didn't last too long and then we went back to my Aunt's house and waited for her to finish up at her work (she lives across the street from the Court...literally, you can see her office from her living room balcony), and to come home. She was mostly bummed out that the next hearing is scheduled for her birthday. It's a Monday and we were planning on taking a 3 day weekend and traveling in Europe for her birthday, but now she'll have to be at the Court on that day....bummer!

Home alone...dun dun dunnn

This past weekend, my family headed to London WITHOUT ME!!! How rude! They left me to babysit the dog because apparently the U.K. is difficult about bringing animals in. So, I spent the weekend with the dog...while my family toured Europe. However, karma kicked in because their first night in London they got the car towed. They should have been nicer to me and Twiga!

Friday afternoon I finally got to hang out with that kid Chris that I wrote about. He was cool....he and his Mom live here in Holland. We hung out and ate pizza and played video games all afternoon and evening. Unfortunately he starts back to school next week, so he'll be really busy again. But, its cool to know that kids are kids wherever you go.

Well, after that I spent both the weekend days on the computer talking to my friends back home. I was really glad....I miss everyone! While doing this I also had to walk Twiga three times a day and feed her in the morning and night. Now when I say I was on the computer both days I mean all day and night. On friday night I talked to my friend Megan all night and day and most of the next night. I also talked to Becca and Kels part of the time. While I did all this I also watched movies. Then on sunday night my parents got home and told me that they were dumb enough that they got the car toed on the first night...that is just sad. finally I went to sleep around 1 1:30. I can't decide if they had a better weekend in London or if I did just getting to be without them and to talk to people my own age for a while.

I might have thrown a party except it would have been a sad one since I don't really know anyone....my Aunt is just lucky, otherwise we might have trashed the place. oh well....maybe next time they go away and leave me alone for the weekend I'll have found some friends here.