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Experiencing Jet-Lag Induced Delirium
All the parts you don’t miss about traveling.
Alas, it has happened. After booking and re-booking flights, waiting on student visas, and taking myriad COVID tests, the day (days, really), of travel have arrived. As with all international travel, you know well that this is going to be one of the more trying experiences you can possibly imagine, but can you ever truly be prepared? Your backpack full of snacks, stuffed animals, and a thermos of coffee alleges that you can be — but probably not for the right occasion. After all, how is a stuffed animal going to help you board a plane?
The first ten hour flight is a breeze. Airport security and the TSA pre-check is miraculously short and simple, and thanks to COVID, you have a bank of several seats all to yourself. Landing in Amsterdam gives you the first small adrenaline rush of the day… which somehow leads to you laying facedown on an airport bench for about five hours of a seven hour layover, not quite sleeping.
The next flight is shorter, but certainly not sweet, because by now you are realising that it is the dead of night back home, and your body is fighting you with every passing moment, because logically you should be asleep. When you find out that you have to take a short bus to get onto the plane, which is already on the tarmac, you begin to…