Mind-boggling: Indo and Oz

Dear readers, how do I explain the mental gymnastics associated with flying clear to the other side of the globe and back?

Some things to consider:

*Note: Do not ponder any of these items for too long. It will mess you up.

-We flew in a metal tube over the Pacific Ocean

-A whole day disappeared while we were on the plane. It just never happened to us.

-I sat still in a seat for a combined total of about 20 - 22 hours each way. (Well, I did take a few stretch/bathroom breaks)

-First, we disembarked in a country where I did not speak the language and we could hear a muezzin calling people to prayer every day

-Then, in one quick flight, we ended up on a Hindu island

-A matter of hours later, we arrived in not-America, also known as Australia. All of a sudden, everyone was speaking English and you could get a delicious Eurpoean-style cappuccino on practically every corner.

Then we pretty much did the whole thing again in reverse, and we even got a day back when we left Jakarta and arrived in LA on the same date.

I’ll admit, my brain was a bit bummed-out when we got back to America, which I have put down to several things:

1. My body thought it was the middle of the night when it was the middle of the day, and it was angry that it was not asleep.

2. My brain was no longer processing tons of new things every instant. No new language input for the ears, no new taste input for the tongue (soto ayam, I’m lookin’ at you), no new marsupials or blue Australian waters for the eyes.

3. Bali is beautiful and Western Australia is probably the cleanest place I’ve ever seen in my life. Adjusting back to a gritty U.S. city took a couple of days.

Also, I’ll let you in on my pitiful geography/spatial reasoning skills: It was so difficult for me to visualize my Western-centric flat map (think: North America on the left, Asia on the right) as a round globe. I sketched it on a piece of paper and kept moving my hand behind the paper, trying to convince myself that, yes, I went AROUND there. To help me, Chris drew an opposite flat map (Australia on the left, North America on the right, Pacific in the middle). It blew my mind.

Anyway, now that you know what things looked like inside my head, here’s a sneak peek at what things looked like outside my head:

Bali

Western Australia

More to come!