ketchup

This whole week I've been tired. Twice I've dipped into my reserves of NoDoz to force my eyes to stay open, feigning awarness, through the afternoon class. It's not that I've got insomnia like I have so many times before. Now I sleep like a rock. When I can finally get to bed, which is about as comfortable as a stone tablet, I crash. In a matter of minutes, despite my worst fears usually, I'm asleep before I realize how tired I actually am.

We stayed up after the party on Friday until about midnight, the new norm for bedtime, but the train schedule didn't allow us to sleep in. Against our will, we rose bright and early and headed via taxi to the train station. Catching the taxi was quite a matter of luck, too, since when we first emerged from the universtiy gates, there wasn't a taxi in sight. I suggested we wait a few minutes and see if one shows up and Stuart countered with a suggestion that we go get one of his favorite snacks--large tortilla-looking rice cakes with sesame seeds, freshly toasted over an open fire. I couldn't reasonably argue with him. "No, let's just stand here fighting off xe oms and being stared at. That waaaay more fun."

We picked up the sesame seed/rice/tortilla thing at the market and as we crossed back over to the univerisity side of Le Lai, a taxi was coming down the street. So in the middle of the traffic, I start waving my arm and call out "Ta-xi!" He stopped, we piled in and off we went to Ga Thanh Hoa, the local train station.

I caught a few winks on the train. So did both kids, thankfully. But I kept jerking myself awake by the horribly embarrassing head-drop thing. You know, the one where your head suddenly loses balance and falls sharply to one side, startling you awake. Gosh, I hate that. It kept happening though, so finally I just gave up. The kids could lie down; Stuart had two seats to himself and Audrey laid lain lied rested her head on my lap. I sat upright facing a kindly old man missing most of his teeth.

After arriving in Ha Noi, we caught a taxi to one of our favorites: Ciao Cafe where we had birthday lunch. It was my birthday and I wanted something extra good.... Chicken Cordon Bleu with honey-mustard sauce and blanched vegetables. I shared with Audrey to keep the costs, and my weight, down while Stuart ate a big, sloppy cheeseburger. Ah... Western food never tasted so good.

The afternoon was spent buying books for my students and for the kids in Tam Ky and for our adopted friends in the U.S., napping (thanks, kids!) and figuring out that the two people I needed to contact to make plans for the weekend couldn't get any messages from me; I'd ran out of credit on my phone. Since, by then, it was too late to have dinner with either friend, I laid lay assumed a horizontal position on the bed and began reading. But just like the other stone tablet (aka bed) as soon as my head was close enough to rest on the thing, I was asleep. Stuart and Audrey caught up on all the satellite channels we're missing in Thanh Hoa, watching a little National Geograhic, then Disney Channel, then HBO, then Animal Planet and anything else that looked interesting. I slept for 2 hours.

We caught a late dinner at Pepperoni's; this time Audrey and I sharing lasagna, Stuart ate BBQ chicken pizza and we all shared some potato wedges with sour cream. Mmm.
(None of us had truly understood how much we missed good food. Not necessarily Western food, just good food. I can come up with about a half dozen meals a week that are really good, but otherwise, we mostly eat to survive. I realize how hard it is for the kids, how much they miss actually enjoying their food so I've got to figure out a way to cook more varied items. The guilt associated with the realization is pretty substantial actually. Tear-inducing, to be honest.)

When we got back to the hotel, we hauled ourselves up the stairs and crashed within the first hour of "King Kong," but I woke up at 5:30 a.m. pretty refreshed and feeling not-so-tired, a wonderful change to the do-I-have-to-stay-awake feeling that haunted me all last week.