Despite the fact that we were staying in the Hague, up until Wednesday, we hadn't really had a chance to get to know the town properly. We were either passing through it in the morning too hurried to stop, or passing through at night when everything was closed. Scherezade warned us that the town itself was not terribly exciting - most of it was built in the 20's and 30's and it's not a particularly striking part of the Netherlands. Still, it was where she worked and we determined to visit her job: The UN War Crimes Tribunal.

Where you go if you're *really* bad.

Have I never mentioned her job? She proofreads court documents; she's not a lawyer or a ballistics expert or a former general of the former Yugoslavia. Since we were there anyway, we decided to get tickets to the big show, i.e. the Milosevic Trial.

I like to tell people that when we got there, the judge asked if anyone had a birthday in the crowd, and I got to go up to the trial floor while Milosevic sang me a special birthday song. Ok, ok...it wasn't Sea World. In actuality, what happened was this: when we arrived past the lengthy security checks, lighter by two cameras and our passports (they let me keep the Curious George lunchbox, though), we were able to catch a good hour of testimony from a munitions expert on some grisly photographs. Yes, we did see Slobodan and yes, he is just as contemptuous as you've read. He spent most of his time spinning around in his chair and just before the trial ended for the day, he questioned the legitimacy of the proceedings. I suppose he does that every day - still, it was cool to actually see it. It's like his party trick.

really big fish

When we were through with the high-security portion of our day, we hightailed it to the Gemeente Museon a few blocks away where quite a few Mondrian paintings are squirreled away from the curious public. I saw "Victory Boogie Woogie" and although that was kind of sloppy and unimpressive close up, I did enjoy seeing some of his more classic lineal compositions with the heartbreaking fields of colour squarely inside the lines. There were also a few expressionist works, ridiculously depressing for the most part. Of course, by this time I was very, very hungry. We met up with Scherezade in the gift shop, and spent another hour looking at ballgowns in the basement. When we finally left for food, I was cranky.

tea for one.

Fortunately, Scherezade knew of a really excellent Chinese place nearby. She and I got the vegetarian meal while my mom played it safe with some chicken. The tofu was the best I've ever tasted - my mom actually mistook it for her chicken for the first few minutes. We ate ourselves silly and I was very grateful. On the way home we stopped by a bakery and picked up some sugary confections for our "night in."

Okay. Here it comes. You all knew that I couldn't go to the land of legal drugs, hookers & casinos without sampling at least one of those famous wares. I'd have very little to say to a hooker and casinos bore me stupid - so it was the drugs that I focussed on. My mom, pretty tightly wound by this point in the trip (not to mention in mourning for her brother), had started agitating that day for something that would help her selfmedicate. So yeah, it was my mom's idea to smoke the joint. Scherezade and I being spazzes in this regard, it was also up to her to roll the joint. Yeah, I have pictures.

arty! yummy!

I discovered that Holland pot is extremely potent. I kept starting stories, then getting all paranoid and convinced that I was talking in my head and not out loud. Scherezade would look up at this point and say, "does that story have an end?" at which point I would realize that I didn't know what story I was telling. I went to bed completely spun around and I think that I was still high the next day. And I ate a lot of chocolate, which was a wonderful taste sensation.

My mom didn't do so well. This being her first time with the stuff in more than 2 decades, she forgot all of the rules. She started drinking a watermelon rum drink, and though she was giggly for the first 2 hours, she quickly became nauseous and began vomiting. Fortunately, Scherezade and I were too high to care. She was painting and I was emailing (probably not the best idea, but what the hell). When my mom emerged from the WC, we quickly got the air mattress arranged and took ourselves off to sleep in the bedroom. I slept really well, but I slept really well every night.

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