Trick or Treat?

It's Halloween! And what Halloween would be complete without the obligatory household pumpkin? Here's my effort for the year:


I'd forgotten quite how difficult it was to cut out a pumpkin, a task not made any easier by our total lack of sharp knifes. But after 20 or so minutes we were left with that scary chap on our kitchen table. Might even make him into pumpkin soup tomorrow. So it's a multi-purpose pumpkin in the truest sense of the word.

I've made a rather fantastic discovery. The Sports Centre here is running gliding classes! For €90 you get a complete course in gliding in a nearby town. That strikes me as fantastic value, and to say I'm keen would be an understatement, Amadeo and Javi are up for it as well. Just need to find out whether they run the courses in English and we'll hopefully be away, or up-up and away as the case might be.

We had a rather funny moment in the supermarket earlier today. Determined to finally recycle all of the glass jars and bottles in our house we took them to what we thought was the glass recycling machine in the shop. We tried to put the bottles in, but it wouldn't take them, and only after several attempts did it swallow one. We settled down for a long haul only for a guy to come out from behind holding the three bottles we'd coaxed down it. Apparently it was only for plastic bottles, which I guess might go some way to explaining why we were having trouble. Still, they seemed to think that it was funny, and we did get €0.75 in coupons for our efforts.

The Mooting Fallacy

This morning I had a meeting concerning the moot that I'm working on, and during said meeting something hit me. We were talking about whether a fictional international organisation, subjected to fictional treatment by a fictional state could bring a fictional action against the fictional state. This is all very well and good, but what real practical good does it do?

I'm going to spend the best part of four months working on this fictional scenario so that I can go and present a convincing argument. Yes, it's tremendous experience, a challenge and a big competition, but wouldn't it be better if people mooting put that amount of effort into a real free representation case concerning real people who perhaps don't have the means or the inclination to seek legal advice?

I guess the question comes down to; Four months of free representation, or four months of fictional representation? To use the words of Dick Cheney, it seems like a no-brainer to me.

Back to Basics

Well, it's been a while since I posted on here, and that's mainly because not much has been happening since I got back. I've been mainly working on finishing my first dissertation, and it was a great relief to hand it in, all 8800 words of it, on Friday. So I've been enjoying a somewhat lazy extended weekend, made all the better by the realisation that the clocks went back this morning thus giving me an extra hour to be lazy in!

Aside from all that... Um. Well, Emma and I seem to have struck up a relationship of sorts with a market stall owner. We went last week to buy some vegetables and seemed to annoy him by (a) not being able to speak to him in Dutch, and (b) by not being sure of what we wanted anyway. So we weren't sure about going back to him again, but he had the best selection, so off we trotted and this time he was very pleasant and even tried to learn what things were in English. We even got a parting joke, or at least I think that's what it was. It's my somewhat sad hope that by the end of the year I'll be able to go up to him and for him to say "Just the usual?".

Armed with the produce from said stall I made a leek and potato soup last night which was surprisingly nice, if a little bland. Still, I made up for that with a brioche bread and butter pudding for dessert. I had intended to take a photo of the pudding, but I couldn't wait to try it, which I figures provides a nice excuse to make another one.

On the work front, I have my first exam in eight days, but it's a take-home exam that I have five days to do and only counts for 50%. So my first real exam is in nine days, but it only counts for 50% of my final grade as well. So my first really important exam is in ten days, and seeing as it counts for 100% of my grade and I've not a clue what the subject is all about, perhaps I should be a little concerned. Roll on the 9th November!

Friends

This weekend I went a bit further afield than normal, and went back to London and Cambridge. Things got off to a bad start when I woke up a whole hour later than I had planned to and had to run to catch my train to Amsterdam Schipol. Still, despite the unwelcome rush I still made it on to and a few hours later was in London for a talk by the Government Legal Service. I had a few hours to spend in Westminster and like a true tourist I ensured that I was equipped with my camera:


I didn't get much further than Victoria, but there are parts of London that are really quite beautiful, it's just a shame that often they're hidden away from general view.

The GLS talk was actually very good and was worth coming back for. It managed to set itself apart from usual recruitment talks by city law firms and after talking to several people in the GLS I have to say that I'm very keen to apply.

I spent the rest of the weekend back in Cambridge. My public thanks to Stuart for the kind use of a corner of his room and his rug as a surprisingly effective makeshift bedroom and mattress! It was lovely to be back at Selwyn. You don't realise how much you miss people until you're with them for only a short period of time. I'm having a great time in Holland, and I don't regret signing up for Erasmus, but I've got to know some fantastic friends in my two years at Selwyn who I really miss, and I don't think I fully appreciated that until I went back. It's a shame that I can't be here and there at the same time. I wasn't planning on going back to the UK that often this year, both because it's quite expensive and because I wanted to try and explore Europe a bit more, but I'm now really keen to go back more to stay in touch with people. The fact that Cambridge now has its own outlet of the 'best' Cornish pasty shop is merely an added bonus, but they did have to build it the year I was away didn't they?



Unfortunately my trip back to Utrecht wasn't much better than my one out. I left in what I thought would be plenty of time, but the queue at Stansted to get through security was huge. I checked in at about 5:50 and I didn't get through security until around 6:45, giving me 15 mins to get through departures to my boarding gate. Cue mad dash through departures without my shoes as I'd taken them off to be scanned. Luckily despite having to get a shuttle to my gate I made the flight with about two minutes to go being one of the last people to board the plane. I'd never even considered that there would be security hold-ups at that time in the morning, but I guess I'll know in future! Not only that though, at 20,000 feet over the English Channel I suddenly remembered that I'd left the cheese I'd been waiting so long for in Stuart's fridge. Upon arriving at Schipol I was surprised to see a customs sign pronouncing that cheese is apparently a prohibited item, so I guess either way I wasn't destined to get it.

Now I'm back I've got to get to work. My first dissertation comparing the UK and Canada is due to be handed in for 17:00 on Friday so I'm working for that at the moment. I did some speed-photocopying for it on Saturday morning and reading through it, it seems like I managed to pick out the relevant bits. Will be glad to get it over with.

On a more upbeat note, I'm now equipped with a Delia Smith recipe book and a 'learn Spanish' course so hopefully they should both prove nicely diverting over the coming months!

Bizarrities

Today's been slightly odd so far. I was waiting for my Principles of Good Governance lecture to start when a girl I didn't think I knew started talking to me. I figured that she must have been in the same class and that I was suffering from temporary amnesia. This continued for about five minutes until she said that she thought I was Dutch. I asked why she'd thought that and she said she must have mixed me up with someone else. Odd I thought, but all became clear when it turned out she wasn't in my class at all. Must have been equally bizarre for her to talk to someone she didn't mean to and for them to talk back as if they knew them. A kind of double-mistaken identity. Anyway, I'll see if history repeats itself same time next week.

Still trying to figure out what had just happened another guy came out of the classroom and asked me if I knew where he could find an Erasmus student. I informed him that I was such a said student and it transpired that he's only just arrived in Utrecht, six weeks after courses have started and is consequently a little bit, well, lost. He asked if I wouldn't mind hanging around after my lecture so he could ask me some questions. I agreed. Sure enough after the lecture he was there armed with questions relating to buying bicycles, the student network, student bars/clubs (I was good with that one) etc. He can't buy any of the course materials anymore as it's so late, and I've agreed to let him photocopy by co use book, but at 600-odd pages that's going to be one hell of a lot of photocopying.

I've also managed to drop my Legal Ethics course next period with the consequence that I don't have scheduled courses from the 8th November until at least the 8th January. Two months with nothing to do! Well, not quite. I've got to work on the moot but it'll be great to have the freedom of not having anything concretely scheduled during the week. I don't know if anyone's hoping to, but it would be lovely for people to come over and visit before Christmas :). The oddest thing though was that the International Office practically advised me to drop the course as I've done so many courses this period. I certainly wasn't going to argue with that.

The Irish, and War Crimes

An interesting mix. Yesterday evening we ventured out in search of Utrecht's best fish & chips. We'd mentioned to Amadeo and Javi that there was little better in the way of British cuisine so we thought we'd try and prove it. There are two Irish pubs around here and they both seemed like a natural starting place. The first one, Florin, was packed by virtue of it being their €5 student menu night. So we went onto Mick O'Connells which was substantially less busy, and to our delight, was having a quiz night as well. They took ages to get our dinner to us, and in two parts, with Emma and Richard having to wait about 15 minutes after we got ours before theirs turned up. The upshot being that the landlord gave us a round of drinks on the house. As for the fish & chips, well, for €9 I think we were all expecting a little more, both size and taste wise. It wasn't bad by any means, just not as good as the local chippy back home. So I'm afraid that Amadeo and Javi left feeling a little short-changed. We'll have to give Florin's attempt a try later.

As for the pub quiz, it was fiendishly difficult. Anyone know who came runner-up in the 10m freestyle diving in the Sydney Olympics? Thought not. Still, we didn't come last and scored more points than some of the other teams had done in the past three rounds combined. Whether it'll become a regular Monday night event remains to be seen.

Today things got slightly more sombre as I went on a visit to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Or rather, Voorburg, a place just outside The Hague, so why it's supposed to be in The Hague I've no idea. To be honest, it was something of a let down. The place was deserted (probably as they've nothing really to do, despite them trying to convince us otherwise), and we spent two hours being talked to in a press conference room. We couldn't see into the Chamber as they were preparing for a 'closed session' - in November... But at least the trip introduced me to another new place in the Netherlands, albeit an area where I primarily saw nothing but four very magnolia walls.

Discovering Holland

This weekend we embarked on a faintly optimistically titled tour that promised we would 'Discover Holland', and that we did. We set off at 8:30 on Saturday morning and then coached it around northern Holland. My art skills aren't up to much, but here's a rough approximation of what we did:


So we covered quite a bit of ground (and sea according to my drawing!). Here's a little bit about each place we visited:

• Elburg

Elburg is an old fishing village that doesn't fish anymore now that they've dammed off the sea. They have though found a novel use for their fishing nets - they adorn the houses as outdoor decorations. It was really picturesque and old-worldly, if a little bit touristy. We were only there for an hour or so, but in that time I managed to partake of a particularly Dutch past time, the raw herring as this picture so gracefully demonstrates:


My first reaction was that it wasn't that bad, and I almost went back for seconds. However, five hours later when I could still taste that lovely taste of raw fish my initial enthusiasm had somewhat rescinded.

• Giethoorn

Giethoorn is described as Holland's version of Venice, albeit only in village form. The whole village is built around a canal network and you can't reach it by car, so the only way to explore is by boat, and that's what we did. Nine of us piled into a boat and almost immediately went the wrong way cue much confusion about where we actually were on the Dutch directions we were given. Still, despite a few wrong turns and some great reversion by Yu, it was good fun, if a little cold.


The village itself was nice, but was certainly geared up for tourists with most of the houses having 'for rent' signs displayed rather predominantly, but despite that it was actually quite charming and I wouldn't mind going back again for a slightly longer visit next time.

• Groningen

This was the headline of the tour and our official destination. To be honest, it was a monumental let down. We got there when everything was closing and it was getting dark. Our city tour was about 15 minutes long and consisted of two market squares, the town hall and the university. We had a meal and a drink before retiring to hostel for the evening, and this was about the best scene presented:



Shall not be making an effort to go there again. But at last I've been to one of Holland's most northerly cities. I think it said quite a lot that the depression rate there is so high that they've laid yellow bricks in the pavements to raise peoples' spirits...!

• Afsluitdijk

This is quite amazing. A dyke that's 40km long. You can see it in the map above (the red road with the red blob in the middle. It's not actually much other than a straight road with water on either side when you're driving along it, but from a satellite picture it's stunning. An amazing achievement, so much so that it has a monument to itself in the middle.

• Enkhuizen (Zuiderzee Museum)

This was good too. The Zuiderzee Museum is an outdoor historical museum preserving an old Dutch village, and you can only get to it via boat again. Unfortunately we didn't have that much time there to look around, but it was lovely:


There were plenty of old shops and I partook of an apple pie and some booterbrot which is like shortbread, but about 90% butter. Delicious. I also had the opportunity to try out walking on stilts, which wasn't quite as difficult as I thought it would be. No pictures of this unfortunately, but there is a movie that might find its way onto YouTube if I come under enough persuasion! A group of us have said that we'd like to go back again one day, so hopefully that'll come off.

All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable weekend and was good value. It was good to get away from Utrecht for a while and see some parts of Holland that I'd never have seen on my own. The group that organised it are running a weekend to Maastricht in November, so hopefully that'll be just as good.

When we got back to Utrecht we saw this sign at the bus station:


Based on the success of the weekend, then if that doesn't present an incentive to travel around more, then I don't know what will!

It was the best of times...

This week's been pretty slow with not much going on. I've pretty much finished one of my papers looking at the (non)availability of 'constitutional review of statutes' under the Dutch Constitution, but I'm struggling a bit with my other one comparing notions of deference in English and American administrative law. I've two weeks to finish it in so I'm going to have to work pretty hard the next two weeks to get it done.

I'm hoping to deregister for one of my courses in the next period to give me more time to work on my moot. If they'll let me it would mean that I wouldn't have any scheduled classes from the start of November until I come back in January which would be a huge boon. I don't know if the International Office will OK it, but I hope they will - would go some way to redressing my self-imposed workload this period.

Sarah and Simone are leaving us tomorrow, so that provided another opportunity to bake an event cake. I was a bit more adventurous this time going for a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and a shaved white chocolate topping. It turned out quite well, as shown by my rather self-satisfied pose in this photo:


Tomorrow we're setting off on the 'Discover Holland' tour where we'll visit; Elburg, Giethoorn, Groningen, the Afsluitdijk, and Enkhuizen. So that's quite an action packed weekend then. Hope to blog again on Monday with some photos.

Amsterdam and Activities

The past few days have been interesting. On Friday, Laura, Emma and I decided to venture out to Lydls on our bike to do so cheap shopping. It's about a 15 minute cycle away, but when we got there the savings more than made up for the distance. Unfortunately though the good times didn't last long. I got on my bike to cycle back and was slightly intrigued when my peddles just span around freely without moving the wheels. I then did the typical, yet pointless, "Let's try that again" approach several times before conceding that I wasn't going anywhere fast. The problem you see is that my bicycle chain is encased in a box which is great for not getting your trousers caught in the cogs, but bad when it comes to things like this. Alas, minus a screwdriver to get it off there was nothing I could do, so I had to walk back home, conscious all the time that my prawns were quietly defrosting in my bag. I managed to unscrew the box when I got back home, and after half-an-hour of pulling and prying I managed to get it off my bike enough to see that my chain had inexplicably fallen off inside. My hands and clothes were caked in oil by the time I'd finished, but at least I've got my €55+€60 bike working again - and that's what counts!

Yesterday was slightly less hands on, and we went to Amsterdam as a belated celebration of Antye's and Emma's birthdays. The weather more or less held, although, when it didn't hold, it didn't hold:


We went as a group of 8, but split into a 5, 2 and 1 when we got there after lunch. So that left Amadeo, Javi, Emma, Laura and I to wander around Amsterdam. Firstly we went to the Anna Frank House. It's an amazing place, it's so small and understated, yet incredibly powerful and humbling at the same time. It's in such a nondescript area that it's hard to believe how it could have happened. Well worth a visit. Absent a map we then wandered aimlessly a bit and took a canal boat cruise around the city's canals and port area:


I know I've blogged about Amsterdam before, but it's quite a nice place. Having said that, it's very hard to get a feel for as it's split up by the canals. The canals are bigger and more utilised than they are in Utrecht, and they're much more numerous. It's pretty picturesque as well:


After dinner in an unashamedly tourist restaurant we took the train back home. On arriving back in Utrecht we noticed something slightly odd. Holland may have a reputation of being a liberal country, but this took us by surprise:


A red bunny on traffic lights? Answers on a postcard please.

This morning I was supposed to get up at 7am to watch the Japanese Grand Prix with Javi and Emma, unfortunately, the first thing I was aware of this morning was it being 9am and me having a missed call from Javi. It's all this excitement I tell you!

Marshmallows

What do you get when you put three bored students, cornflakes, marshmallows, bread, a toaster and a microwave together in a kitchen at 1:30am? Well, to tell you the truth I'm not quite sure just what to name the result. Needless to say, this was the position I found myself in after being subjected to Legally Blonde 2 last night - a memorably unpleasent experience. After the movie had robbed me of all my senses I ended up toasting marshmallows over a toaster, spreading them on bread and trying to make a marshmallow-and-cornflake, well, mush, in the microwave. The marshmallow on toast was actually a roaring success, the cornflake concoction somewhat less so. Yes, as you can see, it's all fun and games here!

It's Antje's birthday today, and it was Emma's on Wednesday, so we're in something of a birthday mode at the moment. I'm beginning to feel quite young, or I was until one of the guys I play badminton with let us know that it was his 18th birthday.

Unfortunately the weather here is now living up to its reputation, and it's raining. Actually it's been raining for about a week now. We had a couple of spectacular thunderstorms a few days ago, but now it's just wet. I'm going to have to swallow what little pride I have and buy a poncho that covers you in your entirity when riding a bike. Whether a picture of that particular scene will find its way into cyberspace remains to be seen!

Many thanks Stuart for picking up Brownlie's book, it's much appreciated! In case anyone is wondering why I've got another International Law book, it's for my moot over here. Interestingly the Professor supervising us seems to like changing my surname, it's gone from 'Connah' to 'Cannah' and now it's hovering around 'McKanna' quite what I'll be by the time I've finished I don't know, perhaps 'Smith'.

Tomorrow is Amsterdam for Emma's birthday, so hopefully I'll be able to post with some pictures when we get back. Until then.

Corridor views

It dawned on me today while I was doing nothing at all and cleaning the showers that I haven't posted a picture of my room, or a picture of more corridor members, so here's a quick post to address that fault of mine. First up, my room:


The picture doesn't quite do it justice, and there's a little bit room by the window that you can't see. Mine is the desk and bed on the right. As for corridor members, it was Amadeo's birthday last week and Javi wanted a picture of us all to give to him. It's still not complete, but the result improves on the previous picture by adding Rita, Antje and Marta on the left: