So I'm sitting in room XX of the United Nations right now, waiting for a break to be over. Let me tell you how I got here:

After leaving class early (yay for professors having other things to do) I hopped on a tram to Mole where I grabbed a croissant because there are no cafes around the UN and I was hungry. I get back on the tram, it goes one stop to Butini, and then says "Terminus." Umm.... what? You have another 3 to go! Then the conductor gets on and says, "Sorry, because of the protest going on around the UN, we're not running there anymore and the service will recommence later this evening."Great. Now I have to walk 3 tram stops, up a hill, to get to the UN. At least I was practical and wore flat boots today instead of heels.

I can understand why they stopped the tram service, though: the whole area in front of the UN is filled with people and flags and they are really loud, and there were even more people parading in. From what I could gather from the signs, they were upset about the human rights abuses in Sri Lanka and the fact that the UN hadn't done anything. Also, there was stuff about Kashmir and kidnappings of Tamil children in Sri Lanka. Obviously those are really big issues, and the UN shouldn't be ignoring them. But can you be surprised it does when countries like Syria stand up and say, "If you're committing your own human rights abuses *cough* Israel *cough* you shouldn't be worrying about what's going on in our country. That's our business- it's called state sovereignty," as they did earlier today.

I have to ask, though- whose idea was it to put a giant concrete square in front of the UN with no other purpose than the chair monument? It's the perfect place to protest. Clearly this wasn't thought out very well, since that giant concrete square also includes the tram stop. Which is, of course, the core of my problem- I fully support the protest, just not the fact that I had to walk three tram stops to get to the UN because of it. Rant over.