Dazed and confused (by Joe)

We´re in a state of confusion having crossed from New Zealand to South America. The flight was about 12 hours, but because we crossed the international dateline, the time difference is effectively a whopping minus 17 hours.

This meant that somehow we arrived in Santiago some 5 hours before we left New Zealand. It also meant that we had, in effect, two March 27ths !?)

I´ve found the whole episode surprisingly upsetting. And goodness knows how I´d have felt had we crossed the other way ...

Sitting at home, I may not have thought about it a great deal, but I´ve never had a problem with the concept of the international dateline.

But I now know it´s one of those things, like major family disagreements or the Kingston one-way system: simple when seen from a distance, but virtually impossible to grasp when you are involved directly.

Joe