3:34 AM.
The clock on my computer is staring back at me, screaming, “GO TO BED!” in its non-threatening, tiny white font.
And yet, I am nowhere near tired.
Welcome to the road-trip life, nine time zones away.
I have officially arrived in Sochi, Russia, home of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Over the next few weeks, I will cover the Games for my current station, WXIA-TV/11Alive in Atlanta, as well as stations and newspapers across the country owned by our parent company, Gannett.
(As for what exactly I will be doing, that will be the subject of an entry in the near future.)
This is a truly exciting opportunity, one that I cannot wait to tackle.
But first, somehow, I have to get my body right.
WXIA photographer Jon Samuels and I departed from Atlanta Saturday evening; we arrived in Sochi three flights and 18 hours later. Technically, we got here Sunday evening, but I still felt like I was still living in the previous day, as if I was experiencing one super-long, mostly plane-bound day.
Six hours later, I have completely lost my time frame of reference. It’s dark; I’m not tired; I need to be awake in five hours; and I know, at some point, my body is going to re-synchronize with my mind and tell it to go to bed.
But not yet.
For now, I feel like I am stuck in some sort of time purgatory — no longer on Eastern Standard Time, but not yet on Sochi time.