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In Which I Recover From My Trip
Mar. 11th, 2019 11:28 pmHeading out to Spain this year, I had my easiest time ever acclimatizing to a European timezone. I barely slept on the plane, and so when I got into my hotel, I was pretty ready to crash. I did go get mediocre dinner downstairs, but then I was asleep by 10pm, and slept through the night with just a single interruption.
After that I went and had a full day out and about on Thursday, and I never looked back: I was fully awake during the Europe day and fully asleep during the Spanish night. It was magic.
I do wonder if just coming off of a cold was what helped, because I'd been doing a lot of napping during the day in the weekend before my trip, and so was pretty full-up on sleep. I hope instead it was the full day out in Barcelona, from about 9am to 9pm. Because that's more replicable (and more pleasant). I got plenty of exercise and plenty of sun and stayed quite active that day.
Whatever it was, it was a great start to the trip.
Sadly, I had the opposite experience coming back. I've been tired every night. And most of the days. I've generally been tired. And hungry.
I've been slowly shifting back, and I hope this last weekend finally did it. But I'm shocked to have had no problems resetting my clock to Europe, but definite problems the other way.
I realized after the fact that I should really have dedicated the Wednesday after my return to being out in the sun and doing some exercise. Except we weren't getting any sun! So it wasn't even an option.
Ironically: daylight savings time to the rescue!
I love the start of DST because it means I suddenly get sunny evenings after work. But I also hate it, because I lose an hour of sleep and am groggy for a week. Yes, I voted for always-DST-in-California last November, even though it won't be very relevant to me. (Actually, it'd be nice not having the time differential between Hawaii and California flopping back and forth.)
But this year, DST was actually helpful, because it shifted me one of the hours back toward Pacific Time. A night that I was struggling to stay awake at 11pm was suddenly midnight.
And what's even nicer is that this should be the last time I have to make that shift, as next March we should be in Hawaii, where DST does not exist. (Yay!)
The other annoyance on my return has been the weather. It was nice in Barcelona. Mid-to-high '60s and lots of sun. Then I got to return to the surprisingly cold winter we've been having in the Bay Area. Our average was running about 10 degrees low (e.g., 55), with lots of rain before I left, then the same when I got back too. Sigh.
Fortunately, this is nearing the end of my last full winter before moving to the tropics.
And it looks like things are warming up, as today was finally nice. And this weekend is looking to be 70 degrees and warm. I'm looking forward to a nice hike up in the hills on Saturday.
Oh, hey, I've been back in California almost a week, so my allergies were back this morning.
After that I went and had a full day out and about on Thursday, and I never looked back: I was fully awake during the Europe day and fully asleep during the Spanish night. It was magic.
I do wonder if just coming off of a cold was what helped, because I'd been doing a lot of napping during the day in the weekend before my trip, and so was pretty full-up on sleep. I hope instead it was the full day out in Barcelona, from about 9am to 9pm. Because that's more replicable (and more pleasant). I got plenty of exercise and plenty of sun and stayed quite active that day.
Whatever it was, it was a great start to the trip.
Sadly, I had the opposite experience coming back. I've been tired every night. And most of the days. I've generally been tired. And hungry.
I've been slowly shifting back, and I hope this last weekend finally did it. But I'm shocked to have had no problems resetting my clock to Europe, but definite problems the other way.
I realized after the fact that I should really have dedicated the Wednesday after my return to being out in the sun and doing some exercise. Except we weren't getting any sun! So it wasn't even an option.
Ironically: daylight savings time to the rescue!
I love the start of DST because it means I suddenly get sunny evenings after work. But I also hate it, because I lose an hour of sleep and am groggy for a week. Yes, I voted for always-DST-in-California last November, even though it won't be very relevant to me. (Actually, it'd be nice not having the time differential between Hawaii and California flopping back and forth.)
But this year, DST was actually helpful, because it shifted me one of the hours back toward Pacific Time. A night that I was struggling to stay awake at 11pm was suddenly midnight.
And what's even nicer is that this should be the last time I have to make that shift, as next March we should be in Hawaii, where DST does not exist. (Yay!)
The other annoyance on my return has been the weather. It was nice in Barcelona. Mid-to-high '60s and lots of sun. Then I got to return to the surprisingly cold winter we've been having in the Bay Area. Our average was running about 10 degrees low (e.g., 55), with lots of rain before I left, then the same when I got back too. Sigh.
Fortunately, this is nearing the end of my last full winter before moving to the tropics.
And it looks like things are warming up, as today was finally nice. And this weekend is looking to be 70 degrees and warm. I'm looking forward to a nice hike up in the hills on Saturday.
Oh, hey, I've been back in California almost a week, so my allergies were back this morning.