And they're off! (On a trip...not mental issues)

Originally published  2 June 2013

This is our first blog entry.........for those of you not interested, as with the last one, let me know and I will take you off the notifications list.

Sitting in the Nashville airport people watching and hanging out. We arrived 3 hours before boarding for an international flight, as recommended by the airline. Consequently, we have two hours 45 minutes to kill. I would bet money that if we showed up two hours before, ignoring the airline, it would be Armageddon at security and check in and we would be lucky to make our flight. It just seems to work that way. Nonetheless, we're here, in departure, and ready to roll.

We fly to Atlanta first and the flight is a little over an hour. The next leg is from Atlanta to Frankfurt, and it's just a wee bit longer at a little over 9 hours. Jet lag really jammed me up last time and I'm trying something different. I tend to be a bit of a night owl, working in the shop until 3 or 4 a.m. For me, it's a great time to work....no distractions, no phones, etc. I'm incredibly productive. The problem is, working on that schedule, with a wake up time of 11 ish in the morning put me something like 11 hours off normal day hours in europe....not just the difference in time zones of 7 hours.

I'm doing something different this time. Each day for the past week, I've dialed my wake up time back an hour, and today got up at 4:00 a.m. Central time today. Laurie did not join me and threatened me with physical harm if I woke her. My logic is, by making my wake up time closer to the times we will be functioning on in Europe, I should be able to adjust better....or at least better than the last time we traveled.

We arrive Frankfurt in the middle of the night for everyone in the east and central U.S. Hopefully we'll both have caught a few hours sleep on the plane and be reasonably able to navigate the city. When we arrive, we plan to check our bags, and explore Frankfurt.............at least until we can check in to our hotel at 4:00 p.m. local time. We will be able to get our phones up and working, get cash from a cash machine, and see a bit of Frankfurt before we turn in.

Next report...........and next stop............Germany!

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