October 25
[ Taken October 9, 2008 | St Marks Basilica | Venice, IT ]
Heading off to London shortly.
Business, not pleasure... though I do admit that I enjoy the Camden neighborhood where the office is very much. Lots of good restaurants and old-fashioned London punks. Too bad the hotel where I stay could be better quality. British TV could also be better quality, but what are ya gonna do?
October 20
[ Taken October 9, 2008 | Postcard gondola shot | Venice, IT ]
So.
I have been gone a bit.
I have been back slightly over a week from my last trip (conference in Venice Italy... my flickr photos are right here, for the interested) and my sleep patterns have yet to really recover. This is a pity, since I am taking off again in a few days. At this rate, I may never have a normal night's sleep again.
Still. Gotta admit that Venice was nice.
I am the first to admit that I have really, really, shitty sleep patterns when I travel.
Basically, when I am traveling I have developed the habit (or reaction or whatever) of just not sleeping. Now, it isn’t that I don’t sleep at all, since I usually end up getting 4 or 5 hours a night in about 1 or 2 hour chunks. It is just that I don’t get restful sleep. This doesn’t seem to be tied to time differences or jet lag either. Regardless of whether I travel to Philadelphia or London, I do the same thing. I also have developed an aversion to turning the lights off in the hotel room while I am traveling, so I usually ‘sleep’ with all of the lights on. Sometimes with the TV on as well. Turning the lights (and TV) off doesn’t really make a difference in the amount or quality of sleep that I get… And I have tried. I just figure that if I am going to be lying wide awake staring at the ceiling, I might as well be doing it with the lights on. At least that way I can read.
Speaking of reading… yes, one day (maybe) I will have to give in and just get myself a Kindle for when I travel. Right now I tend to allot at least ¼ of the space available in my suitcase to books just so that I have enough reading material for those long sleepless nights. Not to mention those equally long and sleepless plane rides.
The older I get, the more eccentric I get.
(I like “eccentric”. It sounds so much better then “neurotic”, “a basketcase”, "crazy", or “strange”.)