Back in the USA

One rule of thumb about jet lag is that it typically takes a half-day per time zone to get back to “normal” after flying from east to west. According to this rule, I should be well over jet lag by now.

There are five time zones separating London, which we recently left after five-and-a-half years, and the U.S. East Coast, where we now live. We departed London on Saturday – five days ago – which means I should have been over jet lag about mid-day Tuesday.

Yeah well, jet lag “experts:” It is now Thursday night and I’m still feeling the jet lag. I pop out of bed at 5:30 or 6 in the morning — not exactly a talent of mine ordinarily. I still crave lunch at 7 in the morning and dinner at noon. I still walk around in a half-daze half the time, wondering what time my body says it is, regardless of what time the clock says it is.

In London it’s about 1:45 in the morning as I write this. Over here in New Jersey, it’s 8:45 at night. I haven’t eaten dinner yet because my stomach tells me I should not be hungry at 1:45 a.m. When I’m done with this blog I will be writing web articles that I normally write in the morning. The beer on my desk tells me I might not get around to writing that web content. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyway….

We have returned to the land of our birth, where they drive on the right side of the road, and apparel stores are open past 8 p.m. (unlike Londontown).  The transition has been pretty smooth.

I must confess – I had some worries about returning to our homeland after being away for more than half-a-decade. Most of these worries had to do with reconfiguring the cultural part of my brain. I got used to the rhythms and moods of England, and its mostly quiet, mostly reserved, mostly stoic Brits. I wasn’t sure how my brain would react to mostly non-quiet, mostly non-reserved, mostly non-stoic Americans.

But you know what they say about riding a bike – how once you learn, you never forget? The same rule applies here.

You never forget how to be an American, and how to relate to Americans. It took all of 11 minutes. I find myself strolling around like a slobbery idiot these days, nodding to people as I pass them, saying “hello,” chatting them up – smiling, for God sakes.

And they smile back! And they chat back!

(FYI: they are not great about smiling and chatting back in London. They are not necessarily great at smiling in London. That’s one of its many charms).

We are staying in a nice hotel temporarily, in a very cool town with lots of very cool shops and eateries, until our new house has all necessary upgrades and repairs. We can walk to everything we need.

We ordered a car online to be delivered here from halfway across the country, so right now we are carless. When we need a car, we rent one by the hour via Zipcar, one of the world’s great inventions. We took a long drive last night through some high hills with a majestic view of nearby New York City.

Today we took a long walk to other parts of town, hopped a train between a couple of villages, then Ubered back.

I have personally eaten a delicious plate of enchiladas, rice and beans at a little Mexican restaurant while here – the real deal, run and patronized by Mexican expats. I have eaten a delicious Italian hoagie at an Italian restaurant. And a delicious club sandwich at a diner. And a big seafood platter at Arthur By God Treacher’s.

I am gorging on all the tasty and calorie-packed foods I missed while in the UK, and will probably weigh 830 pounds in another couple weeks.

Our first meal here was at a decent Thai place where I had hoped to order a decent Thai beer to go along with a decent Thai meal – only to find out it’s one of the restaurants that don’t sell beer, wine, or other spirits because of some antiquated New Jersey law that says restaurants must have an alcohol license to do such things.

New Jersey has “BYO” laws. This means that at a lot of restaurants, you must Bring Your Own beer or wine and they’ll provide the glass.

This is a law from the 1930s. Or maybe the 1830s.

But, no matter. We will adapt. We are strong! We are flexible! We are adaptable!

We are Americans!

Once again.

Note: I took the photo. About an hour ago.