It’s been an amazing 15 days road trip in the US, going from place to place and visiting the great cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and many more. But it was time to go home!
As our plane turned into the runway, we had a clear view of the awful accident of the Asiana on the San Francisco airport. Most of the plane was already taken away but a lot of small pieces and ashes were still left back. This was not a good way to start our 11 hour flight!
The flight from San Francisco to Paris went smooth… except a few turbulances where my stomach turned. We arrived to Paris according to the schedule and after one hour of walking to the terminal for our connecting flight, I had already traveled for 18 hours and was not even close to our destination but I knew that I must not fall asleep at the airport.
We booked the return flight with a 2 hour layover in Paris but thanks to Air France who canceled the connecting flight just a couple of weeks before our trip and put us on the next one, 6 hours of wait time was ahead of us in the worst terminal I have ever seen, the Terminal 2G at CDG.
The waiting room was overcrowded, there was no air, no space, only 15 minutes of free wifi and not enough shops to fill up those 6 hours. I have never felt more exhausted and bored than during this time. Luckily I have bought the book Under The Dome by Stephen King, after watching an episode of the tv series, and that kept me occupied for some time.
The connecting flight was on time and we arrived to our final destination after being in airports and planes for 26 hours straight. I was looking forward to coming home, crashing and sleeping for 4 days straight but as soon as I arrived home the exhaustion was suddenly gone and I felt completely awake and energetic. I was still according to the US time and even though it was evening in Europe, the day was just starting for me, just like in US. When I finally did go to sleep, I was awake for 32 hours.
I slept like a baby on the first night and I spent the next day in the spa and grocery shopping since we were away for over 2 weeks and had almost no food at home. Sleeping just got better and better on the second and finally on the third night as well. Yesterday I even cooked all morning and spent the afternoon in the city shopping and taking walks. In the evening we even went to the cinema and watched World War Z without falling asleep in the dark cinema, it was pretty good movie by the way although it was hard to imagine imagine Brad Pitt playing in a zombie movie.
I was expecting the worst jetlag of all times but instead I sleep well during the night and feel mostly great during the day. I have moments when I am tired but only for a short period of time.
I heard that the best way to beat the jetlag is to stay awake during traveling and also during the day till it’s bedtime in the evening after you arrive to your destination so that you exhaust yourself so much that you can sleep on the first night. This is the key: to sleep on the first night. After that you are adjusted to the new time zone. This trick worked for me both going to US and returning back to Europe.
Tomorrow it’s again back to work, doing sports and eating healthy for me and slowly I’m starting to get back to my usual routine, at least till our next trip and a weekend getaway might not be so far away.
FitGeekGirl 