Castle Tour, Amsterdam, and Utrecht
This week, I continued my research on constitutional commissions focusing on Belize, Barbados, Tuvalu, and the Solomon Islands. After that, I gathered data on the commissions in St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and the Grenadines and finalized the dataset with Anna to submit to our boss. We had to focus on the finalized reports from these commissions to pick out critical information, like how many members of the commission were there, how the commission was established, what was its mandate, what its submission process was like for its constitutional reforms, and what its first steps were.
After finishing the research on commissions, my coworker had me assist her by making charts for the Women as Constitution Makers conference presentations. I had to research and make tables about environmental rights, procedural provisions, and duties that have been institutionalized in countries like Vietnam, Ghana, Kenya, Bolivia, and Ecuador. It’s fascinating to see how many countries make preserving the environment a national value. Countries like Ecuador grant nature itself rights and several countries have an established fundamental right to a healthy environment.
During the week I had another friend visit me, Allison, who I know from college. I picked her up from Den Haag Centraal train station and we had Indonesian food for dinner followed by an evening at the Plein area (a Den Haag plaza that's lit up at night). Later in the week and after work, we fit in a trip back to Westduinpark where we saw the beautiful beach dunes at sunset which was breathtaking.
On Friday, I made more charts for work, this time on constitutionalized provisions for sustainable development, interests of future generations, remedies for violations of environmental harms, and institutions that protect the environment. I focused on countries like Bhutan, Bolivia, Ecuador, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Moldova, and Vietnam. In the evening, Allison and I took the train to Haarlem, a historic city right outside Amsterdam, where we had a lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant in the Grote Markt area and had some gelato while we explored the winding cobblestone streets.
Allison and I had a busy weekend starting with a trip to Amsterdam on Saturday. I managed to get tickets to tour the Anne Frank House. The tour was moving and it felt so intense to be so close to such a tragic source of history. I found the part at the end of the tour that featured a video of Otto Frank talking about losing his daughter especially emotional.
After the tour, Allison and I walked around Amsterdam and had lunch at Flower Burger where we had brightly colored vegan burgers. After that, a giant Pride March went through De Dam Square while we were there. We spent the rest of the afternoon taking the tram and then a free ferry across the river to the lookout tower that we went up for a sky-high view of the city. The view was amazing and we had a great time in the city.
On Sunday, we took a trip to see the Castle De Haar which is in the countryside outside of Utrecht. We had tickets to enter the main area of the castle and to go inside for a tour. The castle was so grand from the outside that it was hard to look at all at once. Each room on the inside looked like something from a movie, too. After the castle tour, we walked around the beautiful castle gardens of flowers. From there, we went to Utrecht for dinner since I hadn’t been there yet. We went to “Olivier” which is a giant cathedral that has been converted into a beer hall. Although the castle and Utrecht were a little further from where I live, both were well worth the trip.