Dave's Travel Journals
Booze and Sedatives
En route: Seattle to Oslo -- May 26, 2000
By Dave Fox
Wednesday evening... 6 p.m. Seattle time.... I'm sitting at Sea-Tac Airport
doing what I always do before an international flight -- waiting impatiently
to board so I can wait impatiently for 10 more hours before I land in
Copenhagen. Sixteen hours from my door in Seattle to my door in Norway
is too much time to deal with in one chunk. In my mind, I break the journey
into smaller segments and try to ignore the monotony ahead.
My ride to the airport was downright painful. The shuttle van driver blasted
the air conditioner so high, I thought I was already in the Arctic. Worse,
he blasted hideous Helen Reddy tunes.
"This is temporary," I told myself, resisting the urge to hurl
myself onto the highway to escape Helen's whiny drone.
Finally it is time to board. I find my seat next to a little old lady
who I at first think is Finnish. She smiles meekly as I sit down. Another
woman is suddenly in my face, asking if she can "interest me in a
window seat."
I tell her no. I need my aisle seat. Here is the reason: When I fly, I
drink. It cures both my jetlag and my boredom. I have a bladder that is
roughly the size of a pencil eraser. And when I consume alcohol, I need
to go to the bathroom approximatly every 3.7 minutes. I am a cranky-old-bastard-in-training...
but a kind and sensitive cranky-old-bastard-in-training who does not like
to inconvenience people next to me by making them get up every 3.7 minutes
so I can empty my bladder. So I need my aisle seat, and in the interest
of not inconveniencing other people, I refuse to move for this woman who
wants my seat. Later I discover she is the daughter of the sweet little
old lady next to me.
We are in the sky now and the first round of drinks is being served. I
ask for a beer and a gammel dansk. Gammel Dansk is a Danish firewater
that tastes sort of like Jägermeister and pine sap. It's an acquired
taste. I have acqquired it.
The sweet little old lady next to me, who I have now decided is Czech,
based on the fact that I have surrupticiously glanced at her itinerary,
orders an orange juice. As an afterthought, she asks for "something
else" to go with it.
"What?" the flight attendant says.
"Something else," the sweet litle old lady says again.
"What?" the flight attendant repeats.
Finally the sweet little old lady cuts to the chase. "Do you have
vodka?"
I decide I like her.
For the next five minutes, I try to toast with her. I know the Czech word
for cheers and I am dying to impress her. But she doesn't acknowledge
me. She slowly, methodically pours a few drops of vodka into her juice.
"Where are you from?" I finally ask. She tells me she is going
to Latvia but she is American. Her itinerary, which I surrupticiously
glanced at, said Prague.
Perhaps she is flying into Riga, and home from Prague, but I decide she
is an 80-year-old spy. She sips her orange juice, adding a few more drops
of vodka, and pocketing the leftover half of the miniature bottle.
Dinner is served. I am flying on SAS -- Scandinavian Airlines. The meal
is typically Scandinavian -- chicken with sesame seeds and yaki soba noodles,
and prawns in a "Thai sauce." (Translation: soy sauce.)
Here is a riddle for you:
Q: How do you make Scandinavian food spicy?
A: Add salt.
When I lived in the dorms at the University of Oslo many centuries ago,
the entire floor used to show up when I cooked dinner to find out what
exotic aromas were wafting down the hall. It was usually garlic.
So I am pleased to have one last flavorful meal before landing in the
Old World.
A recent article in Conde Nast Traveler concluded that two things will
help you get over jetlag. One is light exposure. Bright lights in the
daytime, dim lights at night, no sunglasses. Light stimulates your pinial
gland, which tells
your body when to be awake. I have followed this plan for several years
now. I like the thought of having my pinial gland stimulated. The other
thing that helps is melatonin tablets. But I don't like to pollute my
body with things like melatonin, so instead I use this formula: booze
and sedatives.
Last year, I slept 5 whole hours in flight this way, and arrived well
rested. It works.
That having been said, my melatonin substitute is beginning to kick in.
It is now 9:30 pm in Seattle, 6:30 am in Copenhagen. Somewhere in between,
it is bedtime. The sun, now a murky, fluorescent orange blob, is either
setting or rising as we zoom over northern Canada. It's hard to tell this
far north.
* * *
I am awakened five hours later by crystal blue skies and daylight that
feels obnoxious considering it's now 3 a.m. in Seattle. Once again, I
am surprised by the success of my self-induced coma. I grope for my water
bottle. (Important medical tip for anyone considering signing up for the
Dave the Fox School of Jetlag Recovery: It is imperative to bring a bottle
of water on the flight or you will become severely dehydrated.)
It is already time for the best part of any international flight: the
hot towels. If I were Bill Gates, I would hire someone to wander through
my house periodically throughout the day with tongs and a tray of hot
towels.
The map on the movie screen tells me we're flying over the Faroe Islands
-- a Danish territory halfway between Norway and Iceland. We have 90 minutes
of flying time left, and I need to wake up or my body will still be stranded
back in Seattle time when it's time for bed again in half a day. It's
lunch time in Europe already.
After a quick stop in Copenhagen, I bounce north to Oslo. The plane dives
beneath the clouds into a nasty thunderstorm. As we land, it hits me for
the first time; I am home in Scandinavia for the summer.
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