Five Seconds

It takes about a week for jet-lag to diminish. For your body to fully recover to the point that you don't feel tired randomly at any hour of the day takes a little bit longer. I'm not sure how long exactly, I'll let you know when it does for me.

Getting in at 3 AM after roughly 18 hours of flights and layovers makes everything sort of surreal. Being suddenly surrounded by a language and visual cues and a culture that is at once both foreign in the way of something you are not accustomed to, and familiar in the way of a recurring dream that you're convinced is actually a memory, can have that affect as well. Being greeted by a family member and one of his friends is reassuring, especially when it's taking your bags much longer than they should to come through the baggage claim. Seeing the exact airport building you knew as a kid, but revamped and modernized after 16 years, is nostalgic.

Arriving at an apartment that's all yours with the rent and utilities already paid for the month and food in the kitchen, where everything is freshly cleaned and readied for you, where all you have to do is to take a shower and wash the transition off of you, and to fall asleep in a new place that you can start turning into a home... That feeling is indescribable.

Getting in at 3AM after roughly 18 hours of flights and layovers makes it really easy to go to sleep.