I’m a good traveler in many ways—organized, speedy through TSA, compliant with gate changes and random obstacles. But in the most important way—the ability to sleep on a red-eye flight—I am not. Travelers who have mastered this skill successfully, please send me your tips. Having gone nowhere at all for quite some time, I tried to be strategic in my approach to this flight: I slept poorly the night before, had no caffeine within ten hours of the flight.. and still, I slept about an hour on our SFO to Frankfurt leg and arrived with a raging caffeine headache. Thank God for strong German coffee.

(Right now Will is typing on his phone, possibly updating the blog too. Are we thinking the same thoughts?)

A curious thing about this flight was United’s commitment to feeding us constantly. We boarded at seven pm and left close to eight, and between then and seven am were served food four times: first, the obligatory mini pretzels, followed by a full meal (chicken or noodles? the attendant wanted to know, but I had many follow-up questions) with ice cream for dessert, and then another food service (sandwich and a mini pack of M&Ms) at midnight, topped off by egg or waffles at seven. I kept feeling bad for waking Will up each time the service cart came by, but I didn’t want him to wake and wonder why he didn’t have a waffle, so…

We’re waiting at our gate in Frankfurt now, and I plan to sleep on that flight, nerves and crying babies be damned. Also, I could use a shower already. What is it about travel that brings out the grease?