My brain is 9 hours behind

I finally made it! Thank god too… it was probably the worst traveling experience of my life. I ended up spending the entirety of the 7th in Washington, which was a blessing. It was probably the most bittersweet birthday in recent memory. Granted I never really have the opportunity to celebrate fully with my friends, considering that the majority of them are back to school by then or about 3,000 miles away. But packing up four months of your life, saying goodbye to everyone you love, and shedding a few tears along the way on my 21st was not what I had envisioned. Side note: I did order a Corona at lunch, which was a nice supplement to my 21st-ness, even if only for a moment. I’m content.

So after my 5 hours of a sleepless red-eye to JFK, I arrive in 55 degree New York at 8 in the morning (EST) hardly excited to wait in the airport for 13 hours for my flight that evening out to Madrid. I tried sleeping but found that nearly impossible with the perpetual “Red-zone-is-for-loading-and-unloading-only” announcements. Around noon I ended up finding a group of students from Syracuse waiting for the same flight and we commiserated for awhile before I was able to get in an hour of sleep. An episode of the Office and three phone calls later, I checked in for my flight (5 hours before our scheduled take-off), met my friend Rebecca near the food court (I had gone to Peru this last summer with her), and found myself actually becoming excited for my trip abroad. After comparing our guidebooks and discussing the potential differences between Spain and Peru while eating the most overpriced sandwich I have ever had, we headed to our gate and boarded the 6 and a half hour ride across the Atlantic. This marked my second night of no sleep… so arriving to the hotel on Wednesday (was it really Wednesday???) I was nothing more than a dehydrated shell of a human being functioning on an inhumanly possible amount of sleep. After lunch, I bought my Spanish cell phone and experienced my first siesta and slept until dinner. And while a good amount of people headed out for the night, I checked into bed at around 10 that evening. All I could think about was the fact that it was 1:00 in the afternoon in my brain…

I’m sorry that one entry entirely devoted to sleep took up so much space but it’s only until now that I REALLY appreciate the value of a good night’s rest.