...the 10 hour time difference

This whole jet lag thing is no joke. It deserves all the respect people have been telling me to give it. I thought the pain of jet lag was just an urban legend, suffered only by the old and grumpy. False! It's a big mother trucker and reeking serious havoc on my REM cycle. I should be catching Zs and enjoying an ice- cold Corona on some tropical island in dreamland, but instead I'm typing to the ether world...I  mean my family, few  friends and many Facebook stalkers...about my latest insomnia. I guess it's not so bad though, at least you are all awake now and it gives the constant To-Do list streaming in my head full attention. That list, by the way, has significantly decreased in size since getting to Finland. I don't have much to worry about here...except those precious hours of beauty sleep I am losing, which I desperately need. (Refer to my previous post about these European chicks. Stiff competition!)

To combat the beast I decided to sleep all day yesterday. Perfect idea right? Sleep all day during the nighttime hours in America to get myself acclimated to the time difference. Like my dad "accidentally" told a college coach recruiting my younger brother, "My daughter can play soccer, but she's not nearly the student that her brother is." Tough to choke down, but he was obviously onto something. So after my brilliant 5 hour "nap," I cautiously peeled myself out of bed, being sure not to wake up the family to discover that they were eating dinner and getting ready to go ice-skating. Discombobulation is also a major side-effect of jet-lag. To my surprise the day was not over, the night was young, and we were going to skate our hearts out. Try to anyway.

I had a quick bite to eat accompanied by a minor panic attack of not knowing what to wear (heels are inappropriate, right?), which was then  followed closely by the realization that I don't know what to wear because I don't know how to ice-skate. Breathe. Jeans, socks, jacket...smile. Good, now get in the car. And we were off to downtown Helsinki to crash and burn on the ice. That was my prediction at least.

Again, my dad was right and my prediction was wrong! I was surprisingly not bad. I didn't fall once. That's right, you read that correctly. I'll repeat, I didn't fall once. Martta was my teacher and proved to be a pretty damn good one. After a few successful laps, I figured my luck was running out and by that time my face was completely numb, so we went into the cafe to get hot chocolate. It wasn't all that hot, but it was delicious and much warmer than my frozen nose. Plus, JP (my faux-dad), bought me a karvapuusti (car-va-poo-stee), which is a cinnamon roll-like tasting pastry, but in the shape of a wider and flatter croissant. It was super tasty and I'm not even a Cinnabon type of gal! 

After skating, we drove around Helsinki for awhile looking at all of the big shopping centers and old, fancy buildings, which were truly breathtaking. I can't wait to go back during the day to actually walk around and spend this Monopoly money they call Euro. Somehow on the way home I reverted to my child self and allowed the warmth of the heater and the buzzing of the car slowly to soothe me to sleep, but my big girl self fought my droopy lids. I tried not to think too much into it, but sleep could be on the horizon and I was giddy.

We finally got home and I crawled into bed... and slept for 2 full hours! 

Oh well, there's always tomorrow afternoon. 

Peace and Love,
Cat