The First Few Days

If you think you've had jet lag, just know right here and now, that I am going to challenge you on that. I thought I'd "experienced" it before as well. Well, you haven't. Not until you've actually moved nine time zones away.

I've traveled to Europe before. And I don't know why, and I've asked everyone here if it's the same for them (yes), it's SO much worse coming here. I think it's a combo of climate, elevation, time change, and the weather making you stay indoors. What ever it is, it was TERRIBLE. We all had it, we all hated it.

The first night here, I cooked hotdogs at one a.m. (beef of course, remember pork is illegal here) We went to bed, woke up at 7 a.m., and I thought it wasn't going to be so bad. I was WRONG. Three a.m., every night for a week, at least one person was up. Often, many of us. And sometimes, the whole house. Gid was the only one who adjusted without any troubles.

Kids and adults alike, were found all over the house at any time of day, just like this. For two weeks we fought this terrible beast. Sam was the first to overcome it. He was on about day nine. Then one by one, we all got over it. It didn't help that just when you finally got to sleep at 5 a.m., another kid would wake up. And really, it's just not that safe having a two year old wander on his own.

We went to the beach first thing on our first morning. We hurried home for some air conditioning though. Whew. H.O.T. I had no idea jet lag would be so bad. Sometime during this, Simon came to me and said, "Mom, I hate jet plag." I said, "I hate jet plag too honey." The hardest thing is that you just feel out of whack all the time. You're sleepy, but you can't sleep. You're so tired, but it's one in the afternoon and if you sleep now, you'll never sleep tonight. You're hungry at the weirdest times. The whole thing is the pits!

And then there's trying to unpack 1400 pounds of stuff you just shipped across the world. Unpack, organize and put away. (see above photo of 20 boxes emptied onto my living room floor) I brought, for each child and adult, clothes and shoes to last the entire year, birthday/christmas presents for everyone, halloween candy/costumes, and a million other little things I thought might bring us a piece of home. Putting it away stunk! It took me forever. Especially becuase I felt like garbage for the first two weeks.

Closing this post, I'll tell you about our medical appts here. We all had to get our blood drawn and exams once we got here too. (really? I mean the 9,873 appts. in the U.S. weren't enough?) Anyway, I walk in, and all the clinic staff are in full abayas and veils. I was totally caught off guard. You can't see them smile or make any kind of facial expression. Just blink, and sometimes not even that because of their veils. It's hard to understand their English, especially because it's muffled. And you can't tell if they're trying to be friendly, because you can't read their body language. Even the nurses that took our blood were wearing white nursing uniforms, with big black head coverings, only showing their eyes. It was a very strange experience for all of us. I think we're more used to seeing this now, but that was a real eye opener for all of us.