Random Musings and Nicknacks

Night in Barcelona

The travellers on this ship are more experienced than the ones on the Pearl. It shows in many ways. It shows in the lineups to the bingo tournament. It shows in the lineups to the shuffleboard tournament. It shows in the lineups for the metamucil in the cafeteria [1].

It shows in the lack of lines – the day we left in the Caribbean there was a lineup down half the length of the ship for people that had to manually collect their luggage after trying to smuggle alcohol in. This time there was no lineup at all. I’m not saying these experienced travellers aren’t smuggling booze onto the ship, I’m sure they are – I just think they are experienced enough to know how to do it.
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Jet lag is a funny thing. You think you have solved it, that it is under control, then out of nowhere it hits you like a ton of bricks. Although it looks like there is a person walking around, what you are looking at is really a hollow shell, with nothing inside.

To a degree Ling and I have dealing with jet lag down to a science. Almost all of our trips go through an entire night, and in the plane you don’t sleep (not well, anyway). You arrive in your destination sometime mid-afternoon, go out, explore, have dinner and go to bed not too early, not too late. Say around 9:00, with the alarm set for 7:00 the next morning.

Of course you go to sleep right away, because you are exhausted. With 10 hours sleep, you are able to wake up, albeit still tired. But you are functioning and get a full day in, and go to bed at a normal time the next night. Problem solved.

Except, it isn’t. It is really just delaying the inevitable, and eventually your body figures out what you have done to it, and exacts its revenge. Two, maybe three days later.
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Segrada Familia

After a day in Barcelona, I have fallen in love with the city. There is a joie de vivre that is indescribable. After having been picked up by a Spanish gentlemen, I’m pretty sure Ling likes it too.
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As I sit here on the balcony sipping wine and looking out over they city, I have to reflect on the fact that you have to like any city that refuses to serve you wine in anything as small as a silly little glass.
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Okay, I admit it. I am tired. As I start writing this we are sitting in the Amsterdam airport, and have another 5 hours left before we arrive in Barcelona. By the time this is finished we will have been in transit for 26 hours, and moved ahead 9 time zones. That is enough to tire anyone out, but I’m used to that. Any time we travel internationally that happens.

What is different this time is that we started the trip already exhausted. In order to catch a 5:30 AM shuttle to Seattle we had to get up at 4:00 in the morning. By the time we had got Ling home from work, finished packing, and cleaned the house, it was already 2:00, and too late to go to bed. So I started the trip with two hours of fitful sleep on the couch in front of the TV.

By the time we hit Barcelona it will have been more then 48 hours since my last night’s sleep. I suspect the bed in that hotel will be the softest bed I have ever slept in, even if it turns out to be a concrete slab.
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