A Time Zone Experiment

Rick and I returned from Ireland on Tuesday, and my flight to Frankfurt is on Monday.

Given that one of the hardest parts of jet lag is adjusting to the time zone, I thought I should try to stay on Europe time. Normally, it takes a day to adjust per hour of time difference, and it just seemed fundamentally worse to try to do that in this particular circumstance.

Last night, I went to bed at 5 in the afternoon (1 am, Irish time) and woke up at 3:30 in the morning (11:30 am, Irish time). It was so strange. When I see it’s 7 and it’s light out, I’m not sure if it’s 7 pm or 7 am.

I’ve tried adjusting to time zones before trips before, with limited success (insofar as I always have difficulty changing time). We’ll see how this one holds up.

I usually have a sense of what time it is within fifteen minutes. Right now, that’s not true.

Last year, when I flew this route, starting in San Francisco and heading west:

Map generated by the Great Circle Mapper - copyright © Karl L. Swartz.

…I was fine until I reached South Africa. At that point, my sense of what time it was just broke. I didn’t regain it until after I got home.

So, even though I’m all confused about time right now, I’m hoping this experiment is a good one for me.

My little trip, once I wind up in Frankfurt:

1. Train to Vienna.
2. Day trip to Bratislava. (New country! #92)
3. Day trip to Salzburg. Apart from Salzburg itself, the train is supposed to be some of the most beautiful scenery in Austria.
4. Fly to Lisbon via Zurich. (New country! #93) At this point, I join Rick and my mom as we explore Portugal.
5. Sail to Gibraltar. (New country/territory! #94)
6. Sail to Puerto Banus, Spain.
7. Sail to Malaga, Spain. Alhambra!
8. Sail to Cartagena, Spain.
9. Sail to Ibiza, Balearic Islands. (New country/territory! #95)
10. Sail to Mahón, Menorca.
11. Sail to Alghero, Sardinia. (New country/territory! #96)
12. Sail to Bonifacio, Corsica. (New country/territory! #97)
13. Sail to Porto Vecchio, Corsica.
14. Sail to Civitavecchia, Italy, aka the cruise port closest to Rome.
15. Visit the Vatican! (New country! #98)

We fly home from Rome a couple of days later.

Map generated by the Great Circle Mapper - copyright © Karl L. Swartz.

As always, I’m using the Travelers Century Club list of countries and territories.

What I like most: my revised itinerary is that I’ll again get to see some of the territory I found so beautiful in 1992 when we drove south from Munich to Venice via Innsbruck.

Ganz Wien

I can’t think about this trip without hearing the Falco song.

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Originally published at deirdre.net. You can comment here or there.