Eastward Loop

I'm not going to write about my time IN Sweden today, but rather, a whole bunch about being out of Sweden for a while.  Yes, it is traveling time, but not just any sort of traveling: Business traveling!

In a few short hours I will get in a taxi to the airport to start the most epic plane escapades of my life (to date).   I start by a 6:40 AM flight Wednesday, from my homebase of Gothenburg back to my old haunt; Paris.   A quick change and I am on the long-haul flight to Shanghai, China.

After ~14 hours of flying and transfers I arrive in Shanghai; 6:50 AM Thursday...  Yup, + 1 calendar day.  Welcome to Jet Lag!

If you haven't done a lot of flying (and up until the last few years I was firmly in that group as well) you might not understand how intense jet lag can be, especially when traveling East.  Headed West, while still screwy, is easier to cope with as you are traveling with the normal movement of the sun.   This means that when you get off the plane on the other end, even on a long haul flight, your inner clock is likely not too far off and you simply feel like you've had an extra long day.

Headed East though presents you will a radical departure from your normal day/night cycle and the loss of hours from your day (or in this case days from your week).  Suddenly you find yourself struggling to stay awake mid-afternoon and waking up at ungodly hours of the morning (typically reserved for late nights on weekends, vacations and highschool).

So.... I hit Shanghai, jet lagged and due to pitch my current game project to an entire studio of people hours after stepping off the plane.   Yeah, that presentation is going to be one for the scrap book.

The upside though is that I will have a few extra days after this presentation to explore Shanghai, and you can bet that I will have my camera firmly in hand!

However, the title of this post isn't "China Bound", so lets get back to the "Loop" bit.

Sunday morning, 9:05 AM I hit the airport again (hopefully I will get to check out the mag-lev train that connects the city to the airport) and hop a flight to San Francisco via Tokyo.

It's roughly another 15 hours of flights and transfer times before I arrive in the US (and boy howdy, coming from China I bet this will be a much more thorough entry into the US than most Canadians tend to experience).  This time I arrive in San Fran at 9:15 AM...   the same damned day as when I stepped on the plane 15 hours previous.   Mmmmhm, it's going to be THAT sort of mind-fuck of a trip. 

At this point I will have roughly 24 hours to recover before I kick off 3 straight days of Marketing meetings, Executive reviews and Technology briefings.   No worries though,  I probably don't need to be sharp and a alert or anything.  NOT.

Three days of corporate grind later and I hop a Thursday afternoon flight at 2 PM bound for Gothenburg via Amsterdam.   Sixteen some odd hours later I arrive in Gothenburg at 1:30 PM...  FRIDAY.  So, ummm, where is my other 8 hours of Thursday?!?  

So..  lets recap here, if only for my own sanity:

1. Gothenburg to Shanghai: Lose a day.
2. Shanghai to San Francisco: Gain a day.
3. San Fran to Gothenburg: Lose a day.

Fuck...  I am clearly coming out behind on that one.  Oh, and DEAD TIRED.  I can only imagine how bad I am going to feel for a few weeks after all of this. 

And for those of you more visually inclined, this little junket looks like this:

 
Despite logging some serious seat time in the coming week (and a good dose of radiation to boot) I just have to look at the bright side, at least there is all the airplane food I can eat in my immediate future!  ;)

Seriously though, there is a bright side:  I get to see a couple new cities (yes, I know, I lived on the west coast for 10 years and never went to San Fran, I am a terrible person), take lots of  pictures, try some foods in Shanghai (but hopefully avoid doing the "Shanghai Shuffle") and best of all earn a metric shit ton of frequent fly miles!

Need I say more?

.......


Of course, some of you may be wondering why I am even bothering to write all this up.  Well, the simple fact of the matter is that right now, at the moment of writing it is 2:24 AM.  I am staying up all night prior to the first leg of the trip in hopes of sleeping all the way to Shanghai and mitigating the jet lag.  However...  I don't have a lot to keep me occupied and keep me from taking "just a short nap", which we all know how THAT would end.


Catch you on the flip side,  ;)


--James.

Jan the Taxi Man

Today I met a friendly gentleman named Jan, who picked me up in his taxi.

Not Jan, but just as friendly!

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I was out today rushing to get my application for a Chinese VISA submitted in time to travel for next Wednesday (which is another story for another time), and after I completed this task Jan picked me up to take me back to my office.

It took two days to fill out all the paperwork.

Being that I had settled all my work for the VISA application I was already in a much more relaxed and happy state of mind, as I had been rushing to arrange all the paperwork and flights over the last two days and it was finally all settled.  Stepping into Jan's taxi only helped make me even happier and more relaxed, as Jan turned out too be a friendly old gentleman who was more than happy to chat with me in English about all manner of things.

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The very fact I am able to hold conversations with random people I meet here is still a novelty, and will likely be so for a long time to come, but in this case it was the comfortable and hospitable nature of the conversation that makes it stand out so much more than usual.

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Over the course of the drive we talked about my recent arrival here in Göteborg and that I planned to stay permanently.  He asked what the first work in Swedish I learned was, and in typical Canadian fashion I had to admit it was  "Tack".  Leave it to a Canadain to learn all the courteous words first.  ;)

Before revealing that tack was my first Swedish word, Jan had guessed that it would have been "Skål", but realized immediately by the confusion on my face I did not yet know what it meant. He explained that skål means "Cheers" in English, and pantomimed toasting a drink to the empty passenger's seat beside him as we drove down the road.  

He quickly followed it by saying "The British also say 'Down the.... Latch?' Is that right?  Latch?"  I corrected him that it was "Hatch", not latch.  Of course he was immediately curious; "what does this mean, hatch?", and I explained what a hatch was and how it related to having a drink.  He was genuinely happy to have learned this little fact and chatted for a moment about how he always thought it was latch, but never understood what that was supposed to mean.

Shortly after Jan changed the subject and we began talking about the Vasa Ski Race that happens every march.  He then proceeded to describe both the race, a 90km cross country race that tens of thousands participate in, as well as educating me  that Vasa was a Swedish king from the middle ages. 

Shortly there after we arrived at my office.  I thanked Jan for the ride and wished him well and stepped out of his taxi.  Chasing after me as I exited the cab was Jan's earnest words "Take care! I really hope you enjoy being in Sweden!"

That I do.  :)