Daily Life

The sun doesn’t rise here until about 7am and the streets are silent and still until about 7:30. I don’t think anyone goes to work too early here. You have until 7:45 am to put your garbage out so there is no early morning clamor. Sean is a 5 minute bike ride to work, so he leaves at about a quarter to 9 for his 9am coffee. We get up at 7am and have ages. We are actually picking up the signal from someone else’s cable TV so we watch a bit of fuzzy CNN.

We like our apartment. It is nicely furnished and cosy. We have the second floor of an old corner house. Some things don’t make sense though. We have a six (yes six) burner gas stove top but only have three saucepans in the cupboard. You can only sit sideways on the toilet if you want to shut the door. There is another door thankfully. The bathroom washbasin is in the shower – handy to reach your toothbrush while in the shower. The loungeroom and dining room is quite spacious and we have a big comfy lounge, a coffee machine and a balcony.

After Sean leaves for work, I have been going for a run. It is a good way to get familiar with the area. The Hague has many beautiful parks. From what I have seen so far they are not wide open spaces like Sydney’s Centennial Park but dense forests. Maps show them as green areas with lots of grey and red squiggly lines through the centre. The red represents bike lanes and the grey is for pedestrians only. Dogs are allowed and many are off leash. Lots of people have large dogs – I have seen gorgeous Red Setters in the park and gigantic St Bernards. I have been gradually gaining courage to go deeper and deeper into these impenetrable forests. The paths seem to take chaotic routes and are sometimes stone and sometimes just earth. In the middle of the park, I have no idea where I am and can see or hear no one else. Today I found out that there is a system to the muddle of pathways – there are colour coded posts and a sign that displays a map linking the posts and giving distances for each route. Fantastic! This was in the Scheveningse Bosjes (I think bosjes means forest) and this is only 1.5km from our apartment. On the way to this park I run through an area with many impressive buildings which are embassies and ambassador residences. It is also not far from Peace Palace which houses the International Court of Justice – this is an exceptionally magnificent structure and its tower can be seen from quite far away. Well, it is very flat here.

I shop for food on The Fred. It is a novelty to go into each of the specialty stores and get waited on. For example at the fruit and vege shop (Groenteboer), you don’t touch any of the produce yourself – the staff select, weigh and pack what you ask for. In the Slagerij (butcher) and bakery (bakkerij), you take a ticket at the door and wait for them to call your number. Again, it’s all in Dutch so I have to guess what “number 18” in Dutch sounds like. There are also Poulier’s or chicken shops and Kaashandels or cheese shops. Beer and wine is very cheap and you can buy it at the supermarket (Albert Heijn is the main one) or from specialty shops. Australian wines like Lindemans and Jacobs Creek are available for about 4 euros a bottle. At Albert Heijn you have to bring your own bags and pack everything yourself. They always ask me a question in Dutch at the end of the transaction to which I say “No” – I think they are asking me “do you collect coupons?” In the book shop Paagmans they always same something in Dutch too and I say “No” to that as well. I think they are asking me if I want my purchase gift wrapped. I hope I am right and I am not saying no to a cash prize or a weekend for 2 in Paris.

Sean rides home for lunch – can you believe it? Most of the staff do this. In the afternoon I am going to a cafe where they have wifi to connect to the internet. Bagels and Beans on The Fred is a good cafe. We should have our own internet and cable connection next week some time. The internet is great because I can use Google Translate to understand Dutch text on websites. There is no free to air television in Holland.

I have also been cruising around on my bike looking for a gym for us to go to. I have visited 3 and we will join the one around the corner from us. The gyms here all have solariums. In fact there are 2 or 3 solariums on The Fred. The Dutch like to have a year round tan. The gyms all also have Powerplates (those vibrating machines) and Zumba classes (salsa dance fitness). All of them have special discounts for ICTY staff.

Sean’s boss Bob and the boss above him Gus are keen cyclists so when Sean’s road bike arrives from Aus he will probably go riding with them.

It doesn’t get dark here until about 9:30pm, so it’s possible for us to go out exploring on our bikes which we did last night. We have also been watching a BBC doco from Sean’s work on DVD called “Death of Yugoslavia” about the conflict and the breakup of Yugoslavia. So many deaths due to extreme nationalism. It’s very confusing as so many groups are involved: Serbs, Albanians, Muslims, Croatians. I am watching it a second time. Sean is going to find out whether I can watch some of the trial of Radovan Karadzic (the Bosnian Serb leader) at the Tribunal – it started today.