mtbc | (Reply)

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Ah, yes, I sure wish I could too! I can read for shorter or easier journeys, like when I'd take Amtrak between Boston and Manhattan, or UK rail from Perth to York. For long-haul, beyond the first couple of hours of the first leg, I am already getting worn down and I usually don't sleep well so spend a significant fraction of the journey feeling very tired and, for this outbound, the second of the three legs, from Dulles to Narita, takes over fourteen hours, and I won't have slept the night before because I'll be driving to a motel from which I take a 4am shuttle to the airport. Watching light fiction is about all that I can manage in that state, I typically can't sleep well enough to refresh (except for one notable redeye on which I fell asleep after the evening meal and awoke in time for breakfast!). Reading, I can manage a few pages, then I start zoning out, then I might take a break, even briefly nap, then manage a few more pages, so I've learned not to bother trying. (I also choose longer layovers to account for things like inter-terminal transfer via another security checkpoint.) I was amused a couple of years ago (another intercontinental journey for which I didn't sleep) to find that a measure of my tiredness was if I could beat the seatback screen's chess game on its lowest level. At least I can manage to catch up on sleep once settled at my destination, except for one awkward time when I was very jetlagged and wanting to sleep during business hours in a room that the owner wanted to repaint! It'd all work much more easily if I could just sleep well after they dim the lights and have people close the window shades, then I could bring a good novel!