Home again! And what a very fun trip. The journey home was smooth except for an agonizing 2.5 hours in various lines at US Customs in Toronto- but even that didn't drive me to drink!
In the past, travel- and fear of flying- was always an excuse for copious wine consumption. This time I had none.
I think a lot of the factors and experiences I'd assigned to 'Jet Lag' actually seem to be drinking-related instead. We arrived home at 11 PM local time on Saturday. I was up and energetic for my 9 AM pilates class on Sunday, in bed by 10 last night, and up at 6 AM this morning- almost back to my normal 5- 5:30 AM getting-up time. Without agony. Feeling fully back in this time zone and ready to resume my normal schedule.
This is very different from how I felt after a long-haul flight when I thought I needed wine- and lots of it- to cope with fear of flying. Then I would get home, sleep fitfully, and awaken feeling draggy and out-of-sorts. It would typically take me a week or so to feel fully transferred to the new time zone, as far as my internal clock was concerned. Coming home whether traveling east or west, was the worst, because it was just back to routine, without the novelty of being in a new or different place to entertain me.
Hmmmm. It appears (although I probably need to do LOTS of exotic travel to check out this theory, lol) that not drinking actually makes the mechanics of shifting time zones easier- what a revelation!
