A guest post on sleep deprivation on the long journey from San Francisco to Rome.

IMG_0084.jpgThis is a guest post from freelance writer and tour escort Angela K. Nickerson.  Her first book, A Journey into Michelangelo’s Rome (Roaring Forties Press, 2008) combines her great passions - travel, art, history, and Italy – in one volume.  She can be reached through her website Michelangelo’s Italy or blog Just Go!.

At one point or another every traveller ends up sleeping in a train station. Not long ago it was my turn. I am not even sure when we actually left Sacramento. But sometime on a recent Thursday I zipped my suitcase shut, and we loaded ourselves in the car for the drive to San Francisco. By this point I was completely exhausted. I hadn’t slept much the night before in the last-minute dash to put work to bed, to tidy up the house, and to do laundry so I didn’t have to run around without clothes again.

Having not slept I thought perhaps I would be able to sleep on the plane. Not so much. We flew Virgin Atlantic, and they offer far too much to keep you awake.  I am used to having a TV screen in front of me, but the selections…  I had my choice of more than a dozen sitcoms, about 35 movies, multiplayer video games, music galore, and text messaging. Who can sleep? First I had to challenge the rest of the plane to a game of Trivial Pursuit. Do you know Lord Byron’s first names? I do. And I won 300 points for that piece of trivia, too. No one else on the plane got it right.

After proving my trivial dominance, I text messaged R in the seat next to me. This is particularly handy for covert operations and spy games. You can text anyone on the plane – including the very hot Brit in 62A. There were a few things I would have liked to text him. Unfortunately, R was sitting right next to me, so I was reduced to texting him. And he wouldn’t reply – spoil sport!

With no one to text back, I set up my personal playlist – all the movies and TV shows I wanted to watch. I decided to go with a British theme, so I chose two episodes of “Super Nanny” – both featuring children with decidedly filthy mouths. I watched a British show called “Peep Show” which wasn’t nearly as interesting as it sounded. I picked several movies carefully avoiding anything too action-packed or which required reading subtitles.

We had dinner – a beef stew that was surprisingly good. Then I settled back to sleep. But I couldn’t. I ended up watching my entire play list instead as my eyes simply refused to close. I was exhausted, but nothing helped.

Finally, just as they were getting ready to serve breakfast and land, I fell asleep.

But that just got us to London. Our connecting flight was delayed because of weather, so R and I had time to buy and write a few postcards. Finally, looking and feeling like death-warmed-over, we crawled onto our next flight to Milan. Both of us were asleep before we even left the ground. Of course, the flight was very short – only two hours. And when we landed in Milan that cat nap didn’t exactly leave us refreshed.

Our plan was to take a train from Milan to Rome, and there were many from which to choose. But… by the time we got to the train station, we had missed them all. Our only choice: an overnight train that left at 11.20pm – giving us another 4.5 hour wait. I stood at the ticket counter and cried. In my exhaustion I’d been looking forward to that train trip as a chance to sleep. And now we had to wait. All I wanted was to sleep. I was exhausted. My head hurt. I couldn’t stay awake any longer.

So, we found a bench. It was stone. It was filthy. But it was flat. We perched our luggage as foot rests, and I lay down with my head in R’s lap. For nearly five hours we took turns sleeping. Given my experience with luggage and train stations, we didn’t dare sleep at the same time. But there, in the train shed in Milan, I had what may have been the best nap of my entire life. The droning hum of the trains drowned out the conversations nearby. R’s lap made for a fantastic pillow, and I simply slept.

By the time our train arrived and we boarded for the night, I felt more human. I smelled, however, like a zoo. Our little berth had two bunk beds and a tiny sink. No room to truly get clean, but we both sponged down. At this point we had been traveling for 27 hours, and we had eight more to go. But we had a place to lay down at long last.

As we pulled out of Milan for Rome, I fell asleep, rocked by the train as it slowly crept through the dark Italian night.

Thanks, Angela. I’m a veteran of long-haul flights - London to Sydney being a popular route for me. Please see this post for practical strategies on long-haul flights. - Caitlin.