Den Hague

Hello hello.
This past week I was away on a study tour to The Hague and Brussels with my European Politics class, and what a time we had.
Let's begin at the beginning -The Hague ( I wont lie to you... I thought for a very long time that The Hague was the building that housed the ICC.  It's not so.  The Hague is the name of the city.)  The Hague makes a great first impression,

 




































but there were only a couple people on the street and many of the shops and cafes were closed which made it feel a bit like a ghost town.

One of the most impressive buildings in The Hague is the Peace Palace which was our first stop as a group.  

Pretty impressive.  The inside was even more elaborately decorated than the outside however cameras were not allowed.  The palace is filled with my priceless gifts from around the world.  For example, Japan spent 40 years and 48,000 people to make silk tapestries for one of the upstairs meeting halls.  There are unbelievably beautiful and were created using a special technique that only four people in the whole world know today.  It would cost upwards of 50 million dollars to repairs them so its pretty obvious why they don't want people snappin piccys.  Denmark's contribution to the palace is a porcelain fountain in the center courtyard.

This is one of the more high-maintenance gifts the palace owns because apparently it is easily and frequently damaged by freezing temperatures.  Go figure, a fountain from Denmark can't handle cold weather...

Moving on to the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia).

 
This is the tribunal set up to try the political and military leaders involved in the yugoslav wars.  We actually got to watch one of the trials take place which I thought was so cool.  My not-so-inner nerd was freaking out to be able to watch the trial, and to hear a witness testify against two military officers who were sitting right in front of me! Crazy.

On our way out of The Hague we stopped at a Trappist monastery for some beer.

I must say, these monks have a pretty sick set up here- a beautiful place to live, plenty of beer, and, you know, inner peace or whatever they have.
We ate a delicious dinner, tasted lots of beer, and then headed for Brussels.