Self-Imposed insomnia

I'm pretty sure today is Sunday. And I'm pretty sure it's PM, not AM. I'm still having trouble subtracting 9 hours to figure out home time. I'm trying instead to remember to add 3 and switch to the other side of noon. But I'm still counting on my fingers to make sure, so I really don't have it down yet. I suspect some sleep will make a world of difference.

I started today's outfit in New York City. I'm not certain exactly how many hours – or days – I've been wearing these clothes. But I do know I put them on on a Saturday and now it's Sunday.

My t-shirt and jeans had breakfast at a NYC diner with my dear friend Zeke. Then the outfit got on an Air France Airbus and flew to Paris. Despite melatonin, ear plugs, and sleep mask, I wasn't able to sleep through all the flushing in the lavatory right behind us. I guess there were a lot of takers for the free Chardonnay and Cabernet in Economy.

We had about an hour and a half to catch our connecting flight in Mr. de Gaulle's airport. Plenty of time to do a little duty free French window shopping. Or so I thought. It turns out that the fact that we never left security wasn't good enough for the French version of TSA so we got to go through three sets of lines, producing our passports at every junction. Like in the US, they wanted to see my lotion and Chapstick in a plastic baggie but they didn't really care if I took off my shoes or not. It was rather odd and a bit liberating not to have to do the barefooted dance through metal detectors.

So anyway, sometime before breakfast Paris time, we got on yet another plane and headed to Venice. We arrived at about 9:00am. I was relieved to see both of my bags bump down the baggage chute since one luggage tag broke in JFK and that airport is devoid of tape or anyone willing to dispense it. However, the other bag arrived in Venice smelling a touch DEETy. Turns out my Skintastic bug spray leaked in a big way which is probably why my suitcase's strap was unlatched and had obviously been searched by someone now free of any annoying mosquitoes.

My goal has been to stay awake until at least 8pm tonight in an effort to get on local time as quickly as possible. Mom and I already managed to get totally lost in Venice, circling something called S. Giovanni e Paolo twice. At least we were laughing when we saw it the second time. We high-fived when we finally corn-mazed our way back to Piazza San Marco. I've never been so happy to see pigeons.

So we're back in our room, resting, trying to prop open our eyes for another couple of hours. My tactic for staying awake is blogging; Mom's is taking photos. She is currently photographing the wallpaper of our hotel room, bringing her photo total thus far to 162. Oh, wait, she just noticed the baseboards. Make that 165.