Ah, jet lag. That wonderful feeling that lets you know how desperately you need to sleep…and yet makes it virtually impossible to do so. I’m on Pacific time, but my body’s still on Central European time.
Yesterday was a long damn day, but the payoff was being able to sleep (if you can call it that) in our own bed. Our day began with a hour-long bus ride to Gardermoen Airport 50 kilometers outside Oslo (you know you’ve been gone for awhile when you’re reckoning distances in kilometers). A two-and-a-half hour flight to Keflavik left us with a layover just long enough time to stroll through the duty-free shop and stock up on Brennevin and Icelandic Chocolate. Then a seven-and-a-half hour flight back home got us into PDX at about 6:30 p.m. PDT. Of course, our day began in Norway, so that was 3:30 a.m. our time. We got home, had some dinner, and managed to stay awake until about 9:30 p.m. PDT (6:30 am CET). I wanted to see if we could get a decent night’s sleep and get back on West Coast time quickly…but it looks as if that’s not going to work out quite the way I’d been hoping for.
I was wide awake at 1:30 a.m….and so here I am, caffeinating myself at a ridiculously early hour. Yeah, today’s going to be a write-off. It’s 2:30 a.m., and I’m eating breakfast and watching the 49ers-Vikings game on DVR. I’d been harboring the delusion that with a good night’s sleep, I’d be able to slide back into something resembling normalcy. Right; I’ve done this often enough that you’d think I’d have known better. I’ll probably reacquaint myself with my guitar, but I suspect that may well be as much as I accomplish today.
It’s nice to be home and have the opportunity to reflect on the past two weeks, though much of that reflection will likely have to wait until I have my wits about me. Remembering the photo of the sunrise I took on our approach into Keflavik, it seems as if it was such a long time ago. We’ve only been gone for two weeks, but we did a lot. I know this trip is something both Erin and I will remember for a long time, and we both know that we want to travel more. We don’t have kids to raise or college to pay for, and we’ve talked about trying to do something like this once a year. We might not be able to do two weeks at a time, but we share a desire to travel, and if the past two weeks have proven anything, it’s that we travel together quite well.
I’m looking forward to getting back into my normal writing routine…but more than anything I need to get some sleep. Sometime. My expectations for today are pretty low, which is fine since I deliberately didn’t schedule anything. I don’t have to be anywhere or do anything…except perhaps for some grocery shopping. Not surprisingly, after being gone for two weeks, the pantry’s looking a bit bare. For now, though, I just wish I could go back to sleep.
