The Worst Day...

No matter how hard those first couple of jet-lagged days can be, the worst day of the trip is always the last one. That's today. It's another gorgeous day here in Delft -- freezing cold, but gorgeous -- but there's a cloud hanging over the town today because it's my last day here. Didn't I just get here?

We had a wonderful weekend. Paul's been really busy with work, so I barely saw him during the week. I've been doing lunch in the room and dinners with friends. On Saturday, we went to visit our friend Arjen in Den Haag -- and we were introduced to an interesting sport called korfbal, which Arjen and his girlfriend play. They told us that it was a horrible game, but they won, and that's pretty much all that mattered to us, since we spent our time figuring out the rules. We didn't have the finer points figured out. Then we all drank more beer and ate some pizza, and everything was okay again. Yesterday, we traveled to Leiden to wander around and do some shopping. I got a tea box, which I've been wanting for ages. Now I truly feel Dutch because I own my own tea box. If you visit my house, ask for tea, and I'll present it your options in a very stylish box with Dutch words on it, which Paul is convinced read "Tea Sucks."

Today, things are quiet in Delft. The holiday vacations are over, so the kids are back in school and they're taking down the ice skating rink in the middle of the market. That just makes it more depressing.

I met Paul and one of his colleagues for lunch today, and I made him promise that he'd plan another meeting -- one that's longer than this one. These few days have been much too short.

Now it's time for me to head back to the room for a bit of a knitting break before doing a little more work this afternoon. I didn't have much time over the weekend to work on Birch, but I've got over three repeats finished. Perhaps my amazement with the whole process is a little silly, but I'm still relatively new to this whole lace thing, and it still amazes me that I can knit something so dainty. I've never really been one for anything dainty, but I have to tell you, I find this whole lace shawl thing positively delightful.

Tomorrow is the trip home. It's a daytime flight, so I'm hoping that I'll have plenty of time to work on Birch...