If you travel enough, you’ll sometimes wake
up in a strange room and think, “wait, where am I, exactly?” Heck, that’s
happened to me in my own bedroom after a multi-destination trip, until the yellow
silk bedspread and Santa Fe sky outside the window let me know that yes, I’m
home!
That wasn’t a problem yesterday morning; I
knew exactly where I was. Instead, I experienced that another dislocating travel
phenomenon: generic hotel room syndrome. And so it came to pass that I woke up
on my first morning in the exotic locale of St. Petersburg, Russia, looked
around the room and thought, “Wow. I could be anywhere.”
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not complaining.
Especially that morning, after a long, tiring trip that culminated in arriving
at this Holiday Inn at 2 a.m. Who wouldn’t be grateful for a good, firm, comfy
bed in a nice clean room? And a good strong shower in a nice bathroom? Not me! After
all, it had been something like 35 hours since I’d last seen a bed!
Speaking of travel disconnect, there does
come a time when the concept of day, night, afternoon, cocktail hour, etc.,
becomes if not irrelevant, at least flexible. Which would explain the number of
people drinking wine and beer at the Admiral’s Lounge in the Chicago airport at
10:30 in the morning. Hey, even I don’t do that! But I’m sure I more than made
up for it during first the scheduled long layover, then delay after delay. Not
to mention that by time I had that last glass of wine on the Lufthanza flight
from Frankfurt to St. Petersburg, it was definitely past cocktail hour again.
But it was probably more like morning in Santa Fe, so… no judgment on those
folks at O’Hare!
