Is It Losing or Gaining?

Driving from Harvard to Haxtun results in gaining an hour.  That’s the way it is when one crosses time zones from east to west.  Even as I write this it is 6:11 a.m. Sunday morning here in Barcelona, it is 11:11 p.m. Saturday evening in Haxtun.  From Hyderabad to Barcelona we gained 5½ hours.  It is now 11:31 a.m. there on Sunday morning.  The folks we left on Wednesday are already in the middle of their Sunday worship.  You folks back home are probably asleep, whether it’s fast or not.

I, obviously, am not fast asleep.  We may have gained 5½ from India to Spain, but somehow it feels like we didn’t gain anything.  In fact, from the time we awoke in Hyderabad on Thursday until our heads hit the pillows here, a total of about 36 hours had passed, 12 of them sitting in airports.

We may have gained time traveling from east to west, but we lost a whole night’s sleep.  Luana seems to have gained, and indeed is gaining, some of that back.  I, however, still feel somewhat at a loss.