And So Now We Will Sleep…

I never hear of anyone’s struggles with jetlag. Which makes me stupidly think, my family and I are the only people in the entire world who experience jetlag.

Whenever we travel to Europe, we are in a jetlag stupor for days. And what is really annoying, we all sleep at different times!

The night before, I was up all night long. My family slept pretty well. I stayed in bed, trying to sleep. I tossed and I turned. We had the windows open, so anytime a vehicle would drive down our street, it sounded like it was going to drive right into our room. Now I know that isn’t possible, we’re on the third floor, but because I’m in my jetlag fog, it suddenly becomes a possibility. I finally drifted off at 8:00 a.m. Of course, the rest of my family was up.

I also become very concerned with our windows being open. The average daily temperature in Rome, since we arrived, has been 93 degrees. It was 99 today, at least that’s what my iPhone tells me. So, I know I have to shut the windows before the refreshing night air turns into sweltering day air. I think I’ve successfully passed that concern on to my husband, who shut our windows today.

We have a portable air conditioner, which we switched on our first night. The larger section of the machine, has a slim vent about four inches tall, one-foot wide, with cold air blasting out. However, there is a smaller fan section attached to the machine, roughly one-foot square shooting out hot air. How does that make sense? Unless you can detach the fan, which you can’t because there’s a big hosey-thingey attaching each section, you’re blowing more hot air than cold air into the room. Hence, the obsessive concern with outside air temperatures and open windows.

Last night, all of us, except my daughter, were up until 5:00 a.m. Why torture myself and stay in bed? We read, we watched downloaded television show episodes on my son’s iPod, we watched the street cleaners and garbage service pickups, we snacked and saw people watering their rooftop gardens at 2:30 a.m. My son suggested we walk to the Piazza del Popolo at 3:00 a.m. We didn’t, but it certainly seemed possible, after all, we were wide eyed awake.

When my husband and I finally went to bed, I insisted we close our bedroom window – no cars or scorching air for me. My son stayed up until noon, or so I heard from my daughter, who was up for a drink of water when he went to bed. I think I’ll see if he can sleep until tomorrow. My daughter slept all night and slept most of today – she is doomed tonight.

Here we are, on our big, exciting adventure that we talked about for months – irregularly sleeping the days and nights away. When we finally lick this jetlag, I’ll be sure to let you know when our adventures begin.