Jetlagblog!

I am back in Panamá after a horrendous trip back from Sweden. The week in Sweden was great with nice (cold) weather, good food, Birthday gifts and get-togethers with friends but the trip back nearly put me out of action... On the Saturday I had dinner at Patric and Maria´s place until around midnight. Jon and Anna drove me back to Harald´s apartment and I went to bed around 1:30 AM.

At four AM the alarm went off, I took a shower and got dressed and then Taxi Kurir picked me up at 4:40 AM. The driver was a complete bozo that did not know how to get to E4 North towards Arlanda Airport. Somehow he managed to get us up on Västerbron for instance; not the nearest or fastest way. Of course he missed the Arlanda exit so we had to continue driving 15 minutes on the highway to Knivsta before we could turn back. A bit late we arrived to the airport, no big deal however as I chose the Business Class desk for check-in and bypassed some 20 people with that excellent and cunning move.

The Iberia flight IB 3317 left on time 6:50 AM. I was very tired and wanted to sleep. Quite a few of the passengers looked like Militant Vegans or similiar, i.e. members of some radical leftist movement. I sat next to a blond, 20-something girl with dredd locks, black finger nails and a pierced chin! She wore an old, dirty, green military jacket with political slogans written all over it, some kind of short black and white skirt, black tights and handpainted (!?) vans. She smelled kind of funky and the seat was not very comfortable so I did not manage to sleep. We landed in Madrid on time and I took the bus transfer to another terminal and walked what seemed a couple of miles to my gate and stepped directly on the Iberia flight to Miami. Dead tired. I got hold of a La Vanguardia and as I opened it I understood why the other flight had been so full of Swedish leftist radicals; they had arrived to manifest against the neo-nazis who were going to celebrate the anniversary of the former Spanish dictator El Caudillo Franco who died in November 1975.

The IB 6123 flight to Miami was delayed. Next to me was an old German, Herr Doktor Hans-Jörg Kraemer, 76 years old. He was on his way to the Caribbean and a two-week cruise. His English was not very good so he talked mostly in German. I managed to understand most of what he said (I think at least!) and I talked to him with what I remembered from my German classes in high school and English. "Ich habe Deutsch vier Jahre studiert aber jetzt habe Ich bald alles vergessen!". Since we were delayed he was very worried about missing his transfer connection in Miami so I helped him making an in-flight phone call to Costa, the Miami based cruise company. I made them promise that they would not leave without "Doctor Kraemer". The ten hours on the plane went pretty fast thanks to the conversations with Hans-Jörg and a good book I am reading, Åsa Larssons thriller "Det Blod Som Spillts", voted Swedish Thriller of the Year 2004. I learned a new expression in German during the flight; "Schmarren", which means corny or nerdy. They were showing the movie Fantastic Four during the flight and Hans-Jörg said "Dass ist viel schmarr!" every five minutes. "Genau" I replied.

We arrived a bit late to Miami, around 5:00 PM local time. Hans-Jörg asked for help through Customs since he was late and did not speak much English. I said "Aber selbstklar" and then I used his age and the fact that he was late as excuse to bypass the lines of waiting passengers. We were through in less than five minutes, new personal best at Miami airport! However, the bags took 30-40 minutes to appear so that slowed us down. Outside the Costa representative was waiting so I sad "Auf Wiedersehen und Gute Reise" to Hans-Jörg and went to the Bacardi restaurant to have a beer and Carne Asado while waiting for my connection to Panama.

After dinner I became very, very tired; no sleep for 24 hours and plenty of food tend to have that effect on me. I was walking like a zombie to the gate and do not remember anything from the flight (AA 959); I slept from the second I sat down in my seat until we landed in Panamá. I went through Customs in no time at all, that is one of the few advantages with being a temporary Panamanian resident. Jorge Bosquez was waiting for me outside with his cab and I was at home around 1:00 AM. I unpacked quickly, checked on Gabriela, who was sleeping like a log and went to bed at 1:23 AM, i.e. 27 hours after that I stepped out of the bed in Harald´s apartment. I kissed Silvia and slept until 6:00 AM when I rolled out of bed and went to work...

All day yesterday I was feeling tired and jetlagged. But here is a recepy for how to cure jet lag; play with your baby, have your wife cook you dinner and go to sleep at 9:00 PM and sleep all night to 7:00 AM next morning! That takes care of all tiredness!

Saludos / Ingemar