Time: Its important here (Day 8)

So far clocks have been a bit more of an issue for me in Berlin than expected. There are a couple of reasons for this.

1) Jet-lag. The eternal problem; they tell you that it is noon, you know it feels like six a.m and then fall asleep somewhere in public. Luckily I've been able to avoid most of the scenarios we associate with jet-lag (waking up at 2 a.m. feeling fine! etc) thanks to having spent a week in Ireland before coming here. One hour time changes (like those between Ireland and Germany) are a bit like tides on a lake, which is to say they are a ruse.

2) Other people being on different time zones. This one is probably self explanatory, but surprisingly confusing. For one, the stakes are high enough that adding six hours instead of subtracting them can really blow someone's day.

One way of doing this.

For me the real problem was caused by traveling from the West Coast to Europe. Having grown up on the east coast of the United States I've always acted as though Greenwich Mean Time is really based in Greenwich Connecticut. As a result, Europe is reliably 5/6 hours ahead, California is 3 behind, and Nepal is some ten hours and 45 minutes (fourty five?!?) ahead of "real time." Flying over the "Prime Meridian" without more than a few hours in Newark Airport normalize myself has done terrible thing to my ability to conceptualize "time." Somehow I moved "nine" hours (minus 3 to plus six) but remain only six hours away from real time. Eh, good thing its all relative.



You can get a great view of New Jersey from the other side of the Prime Meridian

3) Military Time. Everything here runs on military time and, jokes about Prussian history aside, it is a bit bizarre. Currently it is 16:16 or 4:16 p.m. Not a difficult transition to manage (unless of course you are like me and always try and subtract ten to convert to p.m). Still, the real way to overcome this particular cultural institution is the same as the one for adapting to a new time-zone, one must abandon his previous senses of "p.m." and simply adopt a new set of bench marks to guide him through the day.  I've been trying in much the same way to adapt to the Celsius scale although that has been eased by the fact that it has been no more than zero degrees C (C in this instance can also be read as cold) since I've gotten here. Ultimately, there is no 4 p.m. much as there is no spoon.

4) Darkness: It starts at 4:15. The solstice was a month ago. Some time around 18:00 I want to go to sleep everyday. I pity the Norwegians.



Just remember to be punctual.