From Day 1
I can promise you it was the absolute last thing I felt like doing. When I finally got to my hotel room after traveling something like seventeen hours (Ok, ok... In the grander scheme, it could have been worse, a lot worse, and in fact almost was. More on that, maybe...), I sat down on the little twin bed, kicked my shoes off, and put my feet up. I glanced around the room. I'd opened the window to let some fresh air in (These days it's more surprising to me that American hotel room windows don't open) so a crisp breeze caught the curtains and the muted sunlight of an overcast day illuminated the room. I closed my eyes. A nap. Yes. A nap, I recall thinking, would be perfection. Absolute and utter perfection. I'd been out in the world running for flights (Alright, just the one, but it was a long run), chatting with friendly American strangers, and sitting the f*** upright for far too long. I wanted - dare I say needed? - to check out, sequester myself someplace quiet, cool, and un-peopled, and recharge.
I've long said (Ok, for the past two years and four European vacations) that avoiding jet lag requires a two-pronged approach. The first step is actually believing that you're not going to get it. Call it mind over matter, a rationalization, or just plain fact, but as with much in life, if you think you're going to get it, you exponentially increase the chances that you'll actually get it. With the exception of the winning lottery numbers, "it"can be just about anything - the cold that's going around, allergies, unhappiness, happiness, the aforementioned jet lag. The second approach for avoiding jet lag involves not giving in to the inevitable exhaustion that trans-oceanic, trans-timezone travel creates in the human body. This morning, for example, I arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark, at 1039 local time, 0339 Austin time. Aside from two quick and scary (in the case of the second one) naps on two different flights, I'd been up nearly twenty-four hours. By the time, I ate something (I was characteristically starving and didn't make it out of the airport before grabbing a burger at Burger King), caught the train to into the city, walked to my hotel, and got checked in, I was pushing twenty-six hours. It would have been sooooooooooo easy to give in to the fatigue and sleep the day away.
But where would that have left me? I assume wide awake into the wee hours and ready for bed right around sunrise. Where would that leave me? Sleeping the days away and never adapting to the local time. So this afternoon, I soldiered on through. I got up off the bed, put my shoes back on already my achy feet, brushed my teeth, gave myself a spritz of perfume, packed up my "around town" bag, cued up Nyhavn on my GPS app, and exited the hotel less than a half hour after checking in. According to my Garrmin, I've walked nearly nine and a half miles on an hour and forty-eight minutes of sleep today.
I did allow myself the luxury of a short nap after an early dinner. It was either a nap or call it a night well before 6PM. Sure, I might have slept twelve-plus hours catching up on the sleep I didn't get last night. More likely, I'd have woken up at 2AM ready to go for the day. Given there's really nowhere to go at that time of night and I'd be no closer to adapting to Copenhagen time, I closed the blinds, shut out the light, and curled up under the cool, white duvet. Little in life has ever felt as good. Intending to sleep maybe an hour, I awoke with a start a few hours later (Arguably, I should have set an alarm). I got up, went potty, and decided to hit up a 7-11 (They are one corner shy of being on literally EVERY corner in central Copenhagen) for a bottle of water (a task that is much easier to accomplish in the U.S....probably why we are drowning in un-recycled plastic and Denmark is not). The cool night air reinvigorated me.
Now at nearly 9PM, I'm drinking free coffee (I paid the equivalent of $5.62 for a cup earlier today. It was a good sized cup and I could have gotten a free refill, but f*** balls. Scandinavia hasn't gotten any cheaper in the past year) and writing this in the hotel lobby. Granted the coffee might be a bad idea; I do need to sleep tonight. One other jet lag avoidance tip? Schedule something your first morning. This way you have to go to bed, you have to try to sleep, and you can't sleep the next day away. True to my standard practice, I've got a run scheduled for 9AM. This means I have to be up to eat, hydrate, and drink coffee by 7AM. It'll be a bitch getting up and I'll be tired tomorrow night, but by then I'll be jet lag-free and just about converted to the local time.
What have I done since my last actual night's sleep? Oh, lordy... This is going to make me tired.
I've long said (Ok, for the past two years and four European vacations) that avoiding jet lag requires a two-pronged approach. The first step is actually believing that you're not going to get it. Call it mind over matter, a rationalization, or just plain fact, but as with much in life, if you think you're going to get it, you exponentially increase the chances that you'll actually get it. With the exception of the winning lottery numbers, "it"can be just about anything - the cold that's going around, allergies, unhappiness, happiness, the aforementioned jet lag. The second approach for avoiding jet lag involves not giving in to the inevitable exhaustion that trans-oceanic, trans-timezone travel creates in the human body. This morning, for example, I arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark, at 1039 local time, 0339 Austin time. Aside from two quick and scary (in the case of the second one) naps on two different flights, I'd been up nearly twenty-four hours. By the time, I ate something (I was characteristically starving and didn't make it out of the airport before grabbing a burger at Burger King), caught the train to into the city, walked to my hotel, and got checked in, I was pushing twenty-six hours. It would have been sooooooooooo easy to give in to the fatigue and sleep the day away.
But where would that have left me? I assume wide awake into the wee hours and ready for bed right around sunrise. Where would that leave me? Sleeping the days away and never adapting to the local time. So this afternoon, I soldiered on through. I got up off the bed, put my shoes back on already my achy feet, brushed my teeth, gave myself a spritz of perfume, packed up my "around town" bag, cued up Nyhavn on my GPS app, and exited the hotel less than a half hour after checking in. According to my Garrmin, I've walked nearly nine and a half miles on an hour and forty-eight minutes of sleep today.
I did allow myself the luxury of a short nap after an early dinner. It was either a nap or call it a night well before 6PM. Sure, I might have slept twelve-plus hours catching up on the sleep I didn't get last night. More likely, I'd have woken up at 2AM ready to go for the day. Given there's really nowhere to go at that time of night and I'd be no closer to adapting to Copenhagen time, I closed the blinds, shut out the light, and curled up under the cool, white duvet. Little in life has ever felt as good. Intending to sleep maybe an hour, I awoke with a start a few hours later (Arguably, I should have set an alarm). I got up, went potty, and decided to hit up a 7-11 (They are one corner shy of being on literally EVERY corner in central Copenhagen) for a bottle of water (a task that is much easier to accomplish in the U.S....probably why we are drowning in un-recycled plastic and Denmark is not). The cool night air reinvigorated me.
Now at nearly 9PM, I'm drinking free coffee (I paid the equivalent of $5.62 for a cup earlier today. It was a good sized cup and I could have gotten a free refill, but f*** balls. Scandinavia hasn't gotten any cheaper in the past year) and writing this in the hotel lobby. Granted the coffee might be a bad idea; I do need to sleep tonight. One other jet lag avoidance tip? Schedule something your first morning. This way you have to go to bed, you have to try to sleep, and you can't sleep the next day away. True to my standard practice, I've got a run scheduled for 9AM. This means I have to be up to eat, hydrate, and drink coffee by 7AM. It'll be a bitch getting up and I'll be tired tomorrow night, but by then I'll be jet lag-free and just about converted to the local time.
What have I done since my last actual night's sleep? Oh, lordy... This is going to make me tired.
- My usual hour long morning Spin workout.
- Finished packing.
- Charged all my devices before traveling (A seriously good idea).
- Paid a couple bills.
- Hung out with my dog and caught up on an episode of "Gray's Anatomy."
- Had lunch with a friend on the way to the airport.
- Arrived at the airport in Austin, endured an hour and a half delay that turned my two hour layover in Houston into a sprint from one terminal to the next.
- Watched two and a half movies and napped briefly on a trans-Atlantic flight to Amsterdam.
- Hung out with a couple from Texas and chatted NFL in the extremely long line at customs.
- Napped briefly on a flight from Amsterdam to Copenhagen.
- Made my way from the airport to central Copenhagen, checked into my hotel.
- Walked from my hotel through the city to Nyhavn. Saw Nyhavn for the third time in my life, people watched, took some pictures, and browsed a really cool used book store.
- Drank expensive coffee at an Espresso House while I finished a book and rested my weary feet.
- Returned said book to the electronic book library (I may have to blog this at a later date. It's f***ing amazing, this virtual library thing).
- Ate at a cheap pizza buffet for dinner. Over-tipped to make up for the countless rude Americans I'm sure my server deals with on a daily basis.
- Showered, watched a biathlon ski race (Norway was tearing it up when I fell asleep), and napped.
- Worked on this blog.
Not only did I ward off jet lag, but I got to experience all that. Walking more may have been the absolute last thing I felt like doing today, but it was also the absolute best thing I could have done. I'm here. In Copenhagen. On vacation. I didn't come all this way to see the inside of a really small (yet quaint and homey) hotel room. Of course, I didn't come all this way to blog in a hotel lobby either... The promise of free coffee and a quiet, nearly people-free evening swayed me away from my usual practice of being out and about as much as possible.
As quick as that, Day 1 and Day 2 of my vacation are over. I am so happy that I didn't sleep them away. I only have seventeen more days until I rejoin the real world once again. I have to - have to - make each moment of each day count for something. Granted sleep would have counted for something, but y'all get my point, don't you?
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