It has been an eventful few weeks! Where to begin?
Last Sunday (March 28th) I visited the Gemeentsmuseum in the Hague with my friend Tara. There was a special exhibit on Der Blaue Reiter, a group of expressionist painters including Kandinsky. I loved the movement and color of Kandinsky's works, and was disappointed that they didn't have a collection of posters in the shop for me to flip through. Abstract art can sometimes make one feel confused, but the beauty of Kandinsky's work is that you feel something- even if not definable- while you look at the work. The fact that there is feeling is testament to the fact that the painting is communicating.
The following Monday I had my first class for International Humanitarian Law, or the law of armed conflicts. We are going to be studying the Geneva conventions and Hague conventions, and the implications of treaty law in the international realm. The class was very interactive, with the professor frequently asking questions of the students. The subject matter is fascinating, and it looks like it will be a great class.
On Tuesday afternoon I had a chance to visit the Peace Palace in Den Haag. The palace is the home to the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration. It is not open to the public, so the only chance to visit is for a pre-arranged lecture. The lecture itself was terribly dry, and all of the students I went with were fighting to stay awake. Needless to say none of us left the lecture excited about becoming arbitrators. Nonetheless, I was glad to have had the chance to visit such an important building. Some friends and I had dinner out in the Hague, and I later met up with a friend from home/dancer in NYC who was visiting the Netherlands for the week. We caught up over dinner and lost track of the time, only leaving when the restaurant was closing.
Wednesday was my friend Alisha's last day in Leiden, as she went back home upon finishing her classes for the semester. We spent the day perusing the market and walking around Leiden. My friend Anna and I cooked her a dinner, and later that night we celebrated our friend Jill's birthday with brownies and ice cream. Alisha left the following morning for London; we were all sad to see her go. The transience-ness (not a word, but it works) of our stay here started to sink in a bit.
My friend from Iowa, Jessica, who I had met in the Hague on Tuesday came to Leiden on Friday afternoon. We walked around and I did Leiden as a "tourist", reading the signs outside buildings, reveling in the small pleasures of seeing windmills and canals as though for the first time. That evening we saw a show by Netherlands Dance Theater II, with work by Leon Lightfoot and Alexander Ekman. The dancers were incredible, and the show overall was great. It was great to share the experience with a fellow dancer. We picked apart the choreography, laughed about the ironies within the pieces, and could appreciate the work that went into the performance. We laughed and talked our way back to Leiden. The next morning we went to the market, got stroopwafel fresh from the iron, and enjoyed coffee by a canal before she left to continue her adventures in Berlin.
I will have to finish with the last week's events at another time! They include a trip to Utrecht, an Easter celebration, catching some live music in a bar as a fundraiser for Haiti, eating Dutch pancakes made by some of my Dutch friends, teaching ballet and yoga, and taking a ballet class in Amsterdam!
