Well, we’ve been here for three days and we still can’t sleep a whole night through. We wake up at 03:00 (on the nose) and can’t get back to sleep until 6 or 7 o’clock. At about 4 or 5, after an hour or two of laying awake, we get hungry. My pet theory is that 21:00 (9pm) is about afternoon nap time in the western US, so our bodies say, “Alright, time to sleep!” Then supper time rolls around: 18:00 or 19:00 in the western US or 03:00 in Central Europe. At this point our bodies say, “Alright, supper time!” and we wake up. When 06:00 hits, it is 21:00 in the western US, so our bodies are naturally ready for sleep again.
We didn’t try any trick remedies for jet lag on this trip (though we’ve heard so many). Perhaps beating the body into submission by staying awake from 03:00 through a whole day is the right approach. Perhaps I’ll try that tomorrow. If I do that I’ll certainly be ready to sleep a whole night through come sundown here. Of course, that would mean a very groggy trip to Krakow tomorrow—and I’m not sure I want to be groggy while trying to manage changing trains and navigating another country and another language. We’ll see.
Jet lag makes me think perhaps an extended trip to Europe would be made more pleasant by a journey on the Queen Elizabeth II instead of an airplane. Then one could enjoy the ocean breeze rather than the pressurized hot air of a 747; one could sit out on an open deck and lie down in a private bunk rather than sit propped in a sardine-seat; and one could let the time zones roll by, one per day, rather than trying to adjust to nine all at once. Maybe next time.
~emrys
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