Jetlag and Life After Death

I have said many times in previous blogs that air travel for work is greatly over-rated. I am now a hater of flying to my work destination and for may reasons. The biggest killer of fun for flying across time zones is the jet lag, this is like time travel without the fun of seeing other worlds, it is just the slow freezing of the brain and the loss of several days of life trying to adjust the body clock. Another is the miserable state of airline food, i am starting to think that i should never eat anything on planes as i will be sick and feeling crappy for many days after eating some fancy shrimp cheesey pastry lump of stuff with a fancy french name. One more killer is my companies insistence that we fly air-France everywhere, even if this means flying the wrong way around the world, like flying to sidney Australia before flying to Alaska just because the only way Air France could do it was via Sydney, my company has some sort of cheap ticket thing going on with the airline and all the field guys have to suffer this crap. A final nail in the coffin almost is the inevitability that during a flight packed with several hundred other human germ breeding chambers is that i will pick up some bug that is trying to kill me, on my trip home from Tunisia i suffered all of the above and it made me reconsider what my life is meant to be about,


My journey back from the land of the desert nomads started with what should have been a short 4 hour drive but turned into an almost 6 hour drive because the driver i was given didn't know how to drive properly and couldn't read (or write probably), he stopped once to pray which i didn't know was in my contract of hiring him, otherwise i would have taken another driver, he was dangerous as a driver as he would be slow all the time and then try and overtake in crazy places just because, when we got to Tunis he didn't follow the road signs to the airport but took some back street route that must have added on at least 30 minutes to the trip, man I was so frustrated i could have bitten a lump out of the steering wheel, by the time we arrived at the airport my patience was gone, he took the wrong turn and was taking me to arrivals and not departures, i started shouting and lost all control, i was pointing and gesturing at the signs, he stopped and reversed but then still took me down the arrivals line, i was screaming at him, but to no avail, i had to drag my crazily heavy bags through the arrivals lounge to some escalators before i could then walk all the way to the check-in gates, i was wet through with sweat as my 70 pound bags had no proper handles left as they got broken at least 50 flights ago.

I had not eaten on the trip as the useless driver didn't offer to stop for me so i had to wait to check in before i could go to the business lounge, nearly 2 hours after i arrived at the airport which was 12 hours after i had last eaten, when i got to the lounge my first mistake was to think the food would be great for me, it actually tasted great, probably the best food i would eat in my 2 day extravaganza across the globe to get home, they were lovely little sandwiches with tuna and tomato with some really spicy sauce( A Tunisian speciality, ground dried chillies), they tasted great and i ate about 12 of them, which puts me into the pig grouping of business lounge eaters, there were also some little chicken puff pasty things which were also very tasty, i ate about 8 of them, i was starving, i drank a gallon of grape juice, this all made me feel pretty full, i then found out my flight had been delayed by 2 hours due to the miserable french air traffic controllers demanding to retire at the age of 29 on full pension with a delivery of 24 bottles of Bordeaux wine every Friday and a cheap whore once a month, they are greedy and deserve the Ronald Regan treatment, fire all of the shits. I arrived in Paris at about midnight and then had find a hotel as i was travelling the next morning, i had to drag my ludicrously heavy bags around to find the shuttle bus stop, but i decided to take a taxi, i threw my bags into the back and said Hilton hotel and i was then ejected from the taxi by a miserable french taxi driver who was demanding a customer who would give him at least 50 Euros and a bottle of Bordeaux wine and a cheap whore, i hate them all, he made me get the shuttle, so i jumped into the first shuttle which was the marriott chain bus, the first hotel i got to was a cheapo for the marriott chain and i rushed inside to ask if they had any rooms, a bumbling old Brit guy was messing about with his printer behind hte desk was asking me to wait a minute and i said the bus is waiting to go, i was sweating and shouting, he then said, probably no rooms, i ran out to the revving bus, I was the last one on the bus, he was waiting to go home probably, he looked frustrated that i didn't get a room, so i said marriott, he then zoomed about 100 yards as all the airport hotels are in a small zone, I rushed inside and asked if they had any rooms, the girl from Norway or somewhere Nordic said yes, and as i rushed outside to get my bags i heard her shouting that will be 179.95 euros a night, about $270, i didn't care as it was well past midnight and i had to be at the airport next morning by 7am, i dragged my crazy bags in with me got my key and found a very nice room, with Internet and so i completed more e-mail, complain to the guys back in Tunisia about the taxi driver, I managed to de-stress while getting ready for bed and had an early morning call arrange to get me up, I was blasted out of bed by the phone, like a zombie i rushed downstairs to pay my bill dragging my bags again, and found that my $270 room didn't cover the breakfast, "OUTRAGEOUS" i shouted in protest as i left the hotel for the shuttle bus. I check-in flashing my platinum frequent flier card and went directly to the business lounge, the only food available was chocolate filled croissants, so i ate 4 of them, i was trying to get killer indigestion. I got on the flight and sat next to a really nice old guy who turned out to be an ex-CIA guy of 25 years who had claims of running the killer death squads in Nicaragua and El Salvador against him but denied them all, funny how you meet the most interesting people on planes, i felt kind of strange on the plane, really worn out and over tired and also feeling bloated from all the crap i had eaten over the last 12 hours, we sat on the plane and i was served a nice piece of beef and lots of ice-cream and heavy greasy things and coffees with Baileys and more cream, wow i was stuffed, i watched 3 movies non stop and slept for about 20 minutes, not enough for a 10 hour flight, i chatted a lot with my ex-CIA companion, and we had a lot in common especially the death penalty for all criminals, I'm exaggerating , i was the one suggesting that not him, but we spent a few hours discussing politics and the great possibility that Hillary Clinton will win the next US presidency, i hope so, not another 4 years of a republican, my dollars would be worthless. i was offered a miserable supper of some shrimp stuffed cheesey filled tortilla type things that i could hardy poke with my fork because i was feeling so bloated and horrid, the indigestion was kicking in really well, I had a 5 hour stopover in Atlanta to deal with, I got to Immigration and the guy was really nice, he asked me where i had come from and i told him the desert of Tunisia and he said was there any booze??, i said yes it was OK for beer, then he asked any girls???, a very funny question i thought, i said you never saw them, only school girls and a couple of house keepers in the hotel, he said that was a tough deal, he was offering me commiserations, he then noticed that I was travelling to Costa Rica and he said, man you will have a great time with all those great looking chicks, i was shocked and it was all i could do to contain my laughter at this very nice immigration guys off the cuff comments, so very nice to have a human to deal with in Immigration. I went to wait in the business louge and i was trying to get something to kill my crippling indigestion, i was taking Tomato juice by the bucketful but all i could do is suffer in silence and play freecell and read the business papers until it was check-in time. by now my head was pounding and i felt really tired and sore eyed, the jetlag was setting in as it was like 3am for my body, i got on the plane and hardly looked at the food they offered, it was crap anyway and i didn't have any beer just juice and i suffered through a crap film until we landed, i rused to get off and almost quick march through the airport until i was met by a miserable immigration guy demanding we line up and i then realised the immigration dept was full to overflowing, this meant a long queue up to get in, there must have been 400 people waiting for immigration, i was wilting after all the travelling and i knew my wife was waiting for me somewhere, we got through and i picked up my unbelievably heavy bags from the carousel and struggled to go to the meeting spot where my wife is usually waiting for me, but i wasn't sure where she was as I was 1 hour late by now, my wife was missing, i was missing my sense of humour, i was tired beyond belief, my legs ached, my guts felt dreadful and i felt like death warmed up, my wife had missed me coming out of the arrivals hall and was walking about looking for me and as i was dressed in a black sweatshirt she couldn't see me in the dark street waiting on the corner. what a typical screw up meeting point, it is lovely to have my wife meet me but more often than not we have long delays and lots of problems meeting each other, i may start getting the taxi as it is only 20 minutes away. My wife greeted me and we sped away to our lovely new house to let me see all the decorating she has been doing, wow what a transformation, lots of interesting ornaments and wall hangings and lovely bright vibrant colours. But i was almost dead to the world, i crawled into bed and collapsed, i awoke really early like, 3 am , the jet lag was kicking me again, i felt crap and hungry but also bloated, i got up and had a fruit juice and felt ill, really ill, the sweat was dripping off my chin even though it was cold in the house at night, i was also shivering, i was coming down with a miserable virus, i felt like death run over, oh man i hate flying, my guts were rolling and hungry and bloated at the same time, i was so tired that i didn't even know what to do next, i just suffered all day sweating and burping and thinking what i could eat to kill the acid, that night i collapsed into bed at 7pm and awoke at 12.30am, i took a Valium to put me out, it worked well and i awoke at 7am, still feeling shivery and crappy, flu and jet lag don't mix well.

I was so bloated, mayhbe 100 pounds more and my hair was crazy and my face just puffed up all terrible and mishapen, I felt like shite






I went to bed at 9pm and slept until 3am and took another Valium, i awoke at 7am , feeling almost alive, the sweating had gone and the acid had left me, i had a full fried breakfast of bacon and eggs and fried rice, which is the typical food here, i felt better and i think the virus was in decline, I was able now to enjoy the wonderful warm sunny weather here in paradise, but this all re-confirms my hatred of flying, crappy food, miserable diseases and loss of lots sleep, if it wasn't for the money I wouldn't do it, but that is really exactly why I do do it. I have to try and get back to normal here as I haven't been here in Costa Rica for 7 months, i need to catch up with my Spanish and many other things and get ready for Christmas.