Janet Strayer: Jet-Lagged in Southern Italy

After leaving Canada on January 15, we stayed overnight in London. It was a fine flight, but jet-lag really took its toll on this one. Too tired to see anything, we sort-of-slept in one of the non-interesting hotels near the airport, waiting for the next morning's flight to Rome. You know how you can get so brain-muddled and dreadfully weary after altering your sleep cycles? All this when you have major baggage (including two trombones and paint supplies) to deal with, along with the winding maze of security checks and customs lines. It's a wonder we made it, with all our time-zone challenged non-sleep grogginess. I don't remember it hitting this hard before.

In any case, we picked up a rented car in Rome and drove a long 6-7 hours south to Lecce in Puglia. Of course the Italians do it in less time, but we made it without too much mishap.

I'll write more about this lovely city of Lecce after it sinks in more. Right now it's much colder than I expected. Aside from getting our living situation set up as "home"and dealing with the basic orientation and chores needed for settling in( food shopping, electricity adaptors, cellphone changes and on and on), all I can look forward to at the moment is sleeping at Italian (not jet-lagged Canadian West Coast) hours.

It's been four days and we're still clicking on foreign time. Who knew jet-lag could take so long to dissipate? These time-space continuum flips of this rather ordinary little trip have been so disorienting it makes me marvel at how astronauts ever managed!