Are sunsets overrated?

Well, I checked the weather forecast for Paris for the time we are going to be there, and it is mostly clouds with temperatures in the 60s. So it looks like we might not see any of those famous Paris sunsets over the Seine. But I'm sure we will find plenty other things to fire our romantic imagination and get us in the mood if that's where we want to be.

Final preparations are underway for me: laundry tonight, filling in some of the last gaps in the itinerary, that kind of thing. When I left my office this afternoon, I could feel it: I'm already on vacation. I can do anything I can imagine or nothing. I can sleep in all my clothes and spend the day mostly naked. I can read books or stare at the ceiling. I can contemplate the universe or the hairs in my nose.

And for me, the challenge is to try to rearrange my sleep cycle a little bit. See, when I take airplane flights to Europe, I can never sleep. I'm too excited, and also, I'm used to being up way past midnight anyway, so if the plane lands at 7am in France, to my body that would normally be about the time I would want to sleep.

The websites I read about how to sleep on planes all said, don't take drugs. Instead, get up as early as you can, have a full long day before you get to the airport, so that by the time you are on the plane, you'll be ready to sleep. Which means for me to get up at 6am tomorrow and be up all day, without a nap, until my 9:45p departure from JFK airport. We'll see how it works.

I just get so excited when I'm traveling. It's just the most fun thing to discover new countries and cultures and see history right in front of you. Even after I get to Europe, I sometimes have some trouble sleeping. Like the last time I went to Spain. I didn't get to my hotel until like 1pm, on pretty much no sleep, and it was hot, and my room wasn't ready. So I dropped off my luggage, went for a walk, bought a cold drink from a cart, sat down in the shade and immediately passed out. I woke up an hour later, went back to the hotel, checked into my room, unpacked a little, and passed out again, this time for a few hours.

Finally, I woke in the evening, took a nice shower, put on some clean clothes and went out to search for food. Some take-away from a kebab place, procured, it was back to my room to watch, what else, the US Open tennis tournament for a few hours, then a movie. Then I couldn't get to sleep. So I read a book, finally going to bed around 5am Madrid time, and by the next day, I was finally on a somewhat normal sleep schedule.

The difference this time is that I'm traveling with someone. So hopefully whatever happens with my sleep won't bother her too much. But I think that will work out ok. Therese doesn't sleep too much, so I bet she'll be doing some reading and exploring while I snooze, whatever time it is that I end up snoozing.

And the most important thing is to be on vacation, and do somewhere between everything and nothing, enjoying each other's company while we do it. For what else would be the point of traveling with somebody, especially someone you love, other than to share whatever you end up doing with each other. It could be peeling a grape or getting lost, but sharing it with another makes it special.