6/19/2006

Emotions are on the surface. Maddy has been crying a lot. She cried at the Rotary good bye party. And at dinner and all over the place.

I didn't sleep well. Fell asleep around three am. Spencer or Maddy had trouble, I woke up. then the other had trouble. I dealt, then couldn't sleep. The sky started to lighten. Bah! I probably got 4 hours sleep.

We packed up in the morning. Heather and Kids did things, I don't know what. Then we packed up to come to Niera... We headed out of town on a little road. It seemed like it should go somewhere because it had a sign with Negys crossed out...the 'you are leaving Negys' convention that they use.

So we explored and found cool things. Passed through a neat town (boy, the height of elegance in travel narrative...). After a bit we become more focused and got onto the M3. We listened to the Princess Bride.

The Prince had just dropped his sword as we came into Molly's down.

We went to her lunch place and ordered four plates. Two A's and two B's.

They brought out a chicken soup with star shapped noodles. It was yummy. Then one set of plates were Rice with breaded and fried chicken, the other was potatoes with liver chopped up and cooked like a beef stew. It was all pretty good. Oh, and plates of lettuce that you eat as a side dish.

Then we went to the bike shop. The guy was awesome. He fixed molly's loose bottom bracket, and her loose front axel, sold us two tubes, a lock, and a computer for Molly's bike for some reasonable sum.

Spencer got the HMS Victory model. He was pointing out where Peter slept in the furled sail (in Peter and the Shadow Thieves, which we have been reading).

Then on to Molly's host family. That was emotional. Then to the hotel, a bit of a rest and I attacked my 150 emails. Kids and heather napped. They then walked around the lake while I did more work. Came back and we headed into town to see Molly's places. Had coffee and ice cream at her place. Molly was emotional, there were tears, we Looked at things...

Spencer caught a frog in the parking lot. It got away, hopped under the car. Heather said 'It will be okay.' Spencer and i sort of both replied at the same time with 'no it won't!' Spencer caught it again, and we let it out by the restaurant. Better that then a parking lot.

Then went to the Rotary meeting. It was a farewell. More tears. Then we went to Dinner across the street from the hotel with Molly's host mom, dad, and bence.

They gave us gifts. There were tears. Bence, Maddy, Spencer and Molly ran races in the dark in the park.

Molly is spending a last night with her host family tonight. Heather made up a wonderful story about a sheep that mostly put the kids to sleep, and now I am typing away while all others sleep.

How can this be? How can I have a daughter who not only has gone on foreign exchange, but has finished it?

Now it is 12:43. I need to get to sleep earlier. I am going to reduce my email a bit more, now at 11, take a bath (already run) then go to sleep.

1:33 I did some work. I read boing boing, salon, and sfgate. I feel anxious and unhappy over that. Not sleepy at all. Fuck. I'm going to take my bath. Try and wind down.