I’ve survived another overnight flight to Europe. This time to London. Don’t as me how. More importantly, don’t ask me why.
Why must the vast majority of these Europe-bound flights be scheduled overnight? You arrive early in the morning, sleep-deprived, your body pretzeled into aches and cramps, your digestive system totally tossed out of whack.
I always pass on the dinner served on these flights in hopes of getting a little more shut eye. But, do I?
No.
Why bother serving dinner at 10 p.m. anyway? You’re supposed to sacrifice a third of your precious sleeping minutes to eat airplane food? Particularly domestic carrier’s airplane food?
(We flew American Airlines. Coach. On frequent flyer miles. Top-rank international service this is not. It equates, actually, to air travel of about five years ago, before most U.S. carriers cut out food and incurred fees for everything.)
Yet, in truth it doesn’t much matter. Because I can’t sleep sitting up. Not even armed with a neck pillow and prescription sleeping pill.
On this trip I even tried my long thought-out pillow experiment: wear the neck pillow backwards to keep my head from lolling forward.
No go.
Although I did better by pulling out the seat tray and propping the pillow up under my chin. Combined with the pill, I think I actually slept for an hour or two.
Still, in a six-hour flight to London, you could only sleep four hours max, what with take-off and landing procedures, etc. And, then, there’s the pretzel factor.
Let’s face it, the aging body doesn’t bend the way it once did. Not that it ever bent all that well, anyway.
But, arrive we did, all in one piece. Made our way to our hotel on the Underground and, of course, couldn’t check in. Rooms aren’t ready at 9:30 or 10 in the morning.
We killed the required two hours til check-in by wandering the neighborhood and eating what was either a late lunch or early breakfast. Then, it was nap time.
I know, I know—you’re not supposed to nap after overnight flying. You’re supposed to bust through til bedtime and, voila!, your body will have adjusted.
I don’t think so. Hey, I nap every day. Why should this be different? Two hours in the Land of Nod, and it was time to face the day.
Welcome back to London, son. It’s been a while.
