view from my apartment window

well, brussels – and “blogathor,” as you’ve affectionately become known to me – it’s been great, but i guess this is it…

in a matter of hours, i’ll be hopping on a plane and away from you both.

living in europe these past three months has been phenomenal – both professionally and personally. i’ve learned, experienced and travelled so much, and think i’m all the better for it. i even ran out of time to post about my most recent trip to the czech republic, which was fabulous. (italy, that country is giving you a run for your money – i give it a czech plus – but, don’t worry, you’re still my favorite.)

next destination: onward and upward. time to head back to san francisco, where it seems i’ve been gone from for an eternity, to reconnect with much-missed dear ones, but also to start a new chapter.

so, belgium, i’ll leave you with some words from one of my favorite poets of all-time:

“goodbye is too good a word, babe,
so i’ll just say fare thee well.”

last week sir paul mccartney was here in brussels testifying at a climate change hearing at the european parliament. the theme of the conference was “less meat = less heat,” so paul’s main point was that going vegetarian – or eating less meat – will help mitigate the effects of global warming. 

for me, being a huge beatles fan and a long-time vegetarian, i was in kind of a surreal, fuzzy place sitting there in a daze, just repeatedly snapping my camera in paul’s direction. i, however, kept my cool and did not squeal, shriek or faint at the sight of paul.

i can’t say the same for the other journalists in the room, who literally mob-rushed him after the presser was over, asking for autographs and trying to squeeze past security to get near him. someone even brought a guitar, in the hopes that he might have the urge to play it. no such luck. but quite an experience, nonetheless.

the long room / photo credit: failte ireland

i recently realized i’ve been remiss in posting about two great trips i went on last month. so before i spill about my hot-off-the-presses trip, here’s the skinny on the others…

the first trip was to amsterdam, where i explored a lovely city with quite possibly the highest per capita amount of good soup found anywhere on earth. the more good soup i ate, the more i kept trying – and was never disappointed. it was kind of uncanny. i’d like to take this opportunity to give a huge shout-out to a beloved new discovery: mustard soup.

the next trip was to dublin, where i stumbled upon the most beautiful room i have ever been inside in my life. sorry, sistine chapel, you’ve been replaced – by a library. the long room at trinity college in dublin is out of this world. if i could’ve, i would’ve set up a tent in there.

as my time in belgium is winding to an end, this weekend i decided to tackle, alphabetically, two of the country’s famous towns that i had yet to visit: antwerp & bruges.

neither place disappointed… in antwerp, with the help of my trusty rough guide, i discovered the cutest street (more like a little twisting alleyway) in belgium, hands down. and in bruges… well, in bruges i sighed a lot.

to see what i mean, alstublieft…

headlines / photo credit: vrt

herman, triumphant
belgian poet and pm
congratulations

***
great video piece on van rompuy,  profile on the man & as well as mixed reactions on the decision

a big question is facing eu heads of state tomorrow: who should be the first-ever, long-term president of the eu?

this question could also be rephrased as: does europe need more haikus?

belgium’s prime minister, herman van rompuy, a man with a love for writing haikus, has replaced tony blair as the frontrunner for the new historic presidency, which will be decided on tomorrow night at a special eu summit held here in brussels.

however, getting the 27 member states’ leaders to agree on who should fill the coveted post could take more time than simply having a few glasses of wine over a long dinner meeting, which is currently the plan. oh europe…  i’d also like to think most things can be solved over a few glasses of wine, but this situation is a bit more complicated and could require some sobering deliberation. in fact, my boss literally told me to “bring a sleeping bag” to the council building tomorrow night. we’re in it for the long haul.

so, will the belgian prime minister, who is a skinny, red-faced, wry-witted, intellectual-looking poet, beat out a charismatic former world leader who even had an artistic rat named after him? we’ll find out tomorrow night – or maybe later.

out of nowhere & during a lull in the action, a guy who worked inside the council building walked up to the area where we were all standing & asked my friend to hold a small, stamp-sized sticker so that he could take a picture of it with his iPhone. everyone sort of looked puzzled because the guy in the suit had just come out of the blue – and with a weird request, no less. i guess he grasped everyone’s confusion because he went on to explain that the sticker was actually a special, one-of-a-kind design that he & his friends had come up with to memorialize their recently deceased friend who had died in a skydiving accident. and the guy’s request to have the sticker’s photo taken in front of a press corps full of cameras was his attempt at capturing the sticker in the limelight to illustrate to the rest of the sticker’s designers.

after the sad mention of his passed-on friend, everyone remained somewhat perplexed at the bizarre nature of the request, but felt sorry for the guy, so my friend obliged & he passed her the sticker to hold while he got his camera ready. and then it happened: out of the corner of my eye, i caught a glimpse of the sticker & immediately stopped the guy mid-snap to confirm what i thought i saw displayed on it:

ninjas are sweet, indeed. but they’re even sweeter when they’re in cartoon form throwing chinese fighting stars with your name plastered above them. what are the odds, really?

i don’t believe in coincidences & i’m a big believer in signs, but i’m still trying to make sense of this one… i’ve already been skydiving, so this can’t be a “don’t ever go skydiving” message - although kudos, my fellow brekke, at least you went out doing something you love. maybe it’s an affirmation of my long-standing desire to learn kung fu. perhaps it means i could become a ninja if this journalism gig doesn’t work out. hmmm. thoughts welcome.

after i told the eu suit guy i shared the name with his lost skydiving friend, he gave me the sticker. and regardless of whatever significance the sticker finding its way to me holds, i plan to carry it in my wallet pretty much forever.

a woman protests karadzic's boycott of his trial on opening day

late on tuesday night, i returned back to brussels from my second trip to the hague to help cover the karadzic trial. after much anticipation by both the victims’ relatives, as well as the media, karadzic finally showed up in court on tuesday, november 3rd.

act 1: 

my first trip to the hague to cover the opening of the trial was far more busy and frantic than the most recent trip. it was also more emotional…

on monday, october 26th, the first day of the trial, bus loads of women from bosnia – many from srebrenica – arrived in front of the court house in droves, holding signs demanding justice and photos depicting their lost loved ones. while some of the women were visibly outraged at karadzic’s refusal to show up for his initial appearance in court, others were silent, and some cried.

the overarching feeling in the air was one of raw emotion. i think that feeling comes across in this short video i shot with my little digi. regardless of the language barrier, it wasn’t difficult to understand what the woman in the white headscarf was saying – and what she was seeking to gain at the court in the hague, so far from home.

the first week of the trial, although anticlimactic in a way, was definitely interesting, exciting, and exhausting all rolled into one. it was also a media circus. but, i managed to interview the court’s spokeswoman on the first day of the trial, which was included in one of ap’s video packages sent out to clients (it’s the first interview), which was pretty cool.

act 2:

the second part of the trial was cold and rainy, but all the waiting and documenting paid off in the end because the man himself finally showed up. and before he showed up, i spent a lot of time waiting around outside with one of the camera guys in order to get shots of his car arriving through the court’s gates.

we had the live camera with us, which meant that any pictures we recorded were going directly to the hq in london, which then distributes the footage to clients worldwide. while we were waiting, we spotted one of karadzic’s defense attorneys walking down the street, so we nabbed him and i did a live, 2-minute interview with him on the street, which gave me a rush in a nerdy journalistic way. definitely my top reporting moment while in europe thus far.

after karadzic finally arrived, i watched the court proceedings from our satellite dish truck and was appalled to hear karadzic tell the judges that his “fundamental rights ha[d] been violated” because the court wouldn’t cave in to his requests for more time to prepare. what about the fundamental rights of the 8,000 muslim men and boys who were murdered in srebrenica in july of 1995?

overall, karadzic probably only spoke for 5 minutes of a hearing that lasted approximately 1.5 hours. the prosecution filled up most of the hearing laying out their arguments as to why the trial should proceed as originally planned. the judges listened & will decide on how to proceed by the end of this week. the possible scenarios include: resuming the trial even if karadzic continues to boycott, imposing counsel on karadzic, or giving karadzic more time to prepare his defense (he’s asking for 10 months).

for visuals on the collective 4-day trial, check out my photo set, which is a chronological account of what i saw.

and for a more behind-the-scenes account, you can see the lovely people i worked with during my time in the hague.

yours truly in the middle / photo credit: the council of the european union

apparently, my skills at holding a boom while yelling out “prime minister!” at the various eu member states’ diginitaries needs some work…

rather than replying to my shouted-out, but politely intonated questions on whether or not he thought tony blair was still a viable option as the eu’s future president, the prime minister of spain instead smiled & winked at me, while the prime minister of ireland sighed at me & then replied: “don’t you guys ever give up?”

i did, however, score big with luxembourg’s foreign minister, who at first told me he’d answered that question yesterday, to which i replied: “well, i didn’t hear your answer yesterday” (and then had a brief moment of panic, wondering if my candid response might elicit luxembourg’s equivalent to the secret service to pounce on me for insolence). after rambling for a bit, he eventually caved & gave me a great answer about how luxembourg and other socialist countries could not support a blair presidency given his everlasting ties to bush and the iraq war.

all of this banter has consumed my life for the past two days, where i’ve spent rather long hours working at the eu summit held here in brussels.  the main topics of this summit included getting the member states to agree on a climate change course of action before the big copenhagen meeting in december, as well as coming to some kind of resolution in getting the czechs (the last holdout) to sign the lisbon treaty.

today marked my 11th day of work in a row & i have to say: i am wiggity-wacked. covering the karadzic trial in the hague was amazing, but pretty emotional for me – and exhausting. i’ll get down to brass tacks in a later post when i have some more energy to relay what i saw and how i felt. (i’m heading back to the hague on sunday to cover the karadzic trial when it resumes again on monday. word on the street is that karadzic might actually show up in the courtroom on tuesday.)

but, for now, i am putting all things work-related out of my mind & am having a lazy evening in (have the flat to myself tonight, which is a rarity) & am simply enjoying my post eu-summit purchase at the grocery store: a bottle of nero d’avola, as well as an eu-summit goodie bag inclusion – 27 chocolates filled with a specialty from each member state. my first tasting was a chocolate from portugal filled with … wait for it … port. yum. next up: either ireland’s whiskey chocolate, slovenia’s cinnamon chocolate, or lithuania’s honey chocolate. bonsoir for now…

photo credit: new york times

both of these men have been charged by the un with war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity for atrocities committed during the 1992-1995 bosnian war. most notably, they are charged with orchestrating and carrying out the 1995 srebrenica massacre in which 8,000 muslim men and boys were killed in the worst mass murder in europe since world war II.

the men are former bosnian serb army commander ratko mladic (left) and former bosnian serb political leader radovan karadzic (right). mladic is still at-large, but on monday, october 26th, karadzic, who has been described by the new york times as “one of the world’s most wanted men,” will go on trial at the international criminal tribunal for the former yugoslavia (icty) in the hague to face the charges against him.

and i’ll be there to see it. on saturday morning, i’m heading out with a producer to drive up to the hague, where we’ll meet a crew from various other bureaus across europe. we’ll be conducting pre-trial interviews this weekend, as well as the trial itself on monday and tuesday – that is, if it actually goes forward…

on thursday, karadzic sent a letter to the icty telling the court that he would boycott his trial on monday, citing that he had too little time to prepare for it (he’s opted to represent himself in the courtroom). word from the icty is that the trial will go on as planned for monday morning. we’ll see what the judge decides to do if karadzic stays in the comfort of his prison cell instead of showing up.

for selfish reasons (the excitement of covering an international war criminal’s trial), i hope he shows. and while that is an extremely doubtful outcome, i hope he shows to satisfy something far more important than my own adrenaline rush. i hope he shows in order to bring some semblance of justice to the families and loved ones of the victims whose lives were lost due to reckless power and unthinkable acts.

“people are not little stones, or keys in someone’s pocket, that can be moved from one place to another just like that… therefore, we cannot precisely arrange for only serbs to stay in one part of the country while removing others painlessly. i do not know how … mr. karadzic will explain that to the world. that is genocide,” said mladic. 

and that blatant statement, karadzic, was coming from one of your old war buddies… i don’t know how you’ll explain what you did to the world either, but on monday you’ll have the chance.