News from the Trip, Part 2: Time Changes

We flew in to D.C. via Detroit. Apparently Detroit is 3 hours ahead (I thought they were just 2 hours ahead), so when we arrived at 3am Pacific Time, it was 6am local time. And the sun was getting ready to rise. It was very weird to have a sunrise at that hour. We'd watched the sun go down around 8pm when we were at home, then 7 hours later it was back up!

My sense of time was already pretty screwed up from flying in the middle of the night. That, combined with the "early" sunrise, helped the shift into the new time zone fairly quickly.

But yesterday (Monday) afternoon, I stared thinking about time "back home." For instance, when we hopped on the subway at 5:30pm, I was thinking, "Back home, it's 2:30pm. My co-workers are still at their desks, perhaps thinking about an afternoon cup of coffee; it's nearly Tea Time for Graham. Everyone still have a couple hours of work to do."

And when we got a phone call last night at 11pm, I thought, "Well, it's only 8pm back home. That's not too late to call your buddy." Of course, it would have been nice if that "buddy" here in DC had turned off the cell phone before he went to bed :o)

When I woke up this morning I considered making a phone call, but then I realized, "It's 4am back home; the person I want to call isn't awake yet! And neither is anyone else I know!"

I guess what I'm trying to get at is this: I went through a couple changes in time zone on the way out here, but I didn't really feel it, so it's weird to me that I'm actually in a different time zone! I'm surprised every time I think about what you all are doing back in Oregon.