A Miraculous Cure for Jet Lag

Yesterday,  Ken, my husband, arrived in Paris remarkably energetic. He had just endured a 12 hour flight and yet he didn’t appear to be tired. He said he had a client who was French and they told him about the wonders of French maritime pine bark extract, pycnogenol, for jet lag. It’s sold at health food stores and you take it three days before your flight, then take it twice on the day of your flight.

When Anna and I arrived in Paris, I struggled  to stay up until 5 P.M. and she lasted until 8 PM.  So if Ken could stay awake until 8 p.m. I would have been astounded.  He insisted on having lunch and followed by a day of sight seeing.  Anna and I obliged but smirked behind his back knowing that he wouldn’t be awake for long. We walked to the Hotel de Ville for the Impressionist Exhibition, free to the public, but two-hour wait forced us to change our plans. Plan B: we took the Metro to the Opera Garnier, the magnificent opera house built during the Paris Reconstruction Project.

Opera Garnier

The building is eye-candy, so rich and luxurious that it resembles a painting by a master. It inspired the Phantom of the Opera with it’s underground lake and death of a person when the 8 ton chandelier fell from the ceiling in 1896 and killed a person.

“Ready to go back to the room?” I asked Ken after the Opera Garnier.

“No let’s keep going.”

We had tickets to for Vivaldi’s Four Seasons performed at St. Chappelle at 7p.m..  The cathedral La Sainte-Chapelle was largely complete at the time of its consecration on the 26th of April 1248. It’s beautiful stained glass windows are legendary and despite damage to the chapel during the French Revolution, a majority of the original windows survived. In total in the upper chapel, there are 1,113 biblical scenes in 15 stained glass windows

If Vivaldi didn’t put Ken to sleep like a lullabye, nothing would.  I looked over at Ken as we listened to the ethereal music and although I saw his eyelids flutter but he was still sitting upright. He enjoyed the concert and emerged ready to go to dinner.

We walked to a local’s favorite not far from Saint Chapelle called the Rose of France. Located on a little side street,  the restaurant’s menu appealed to us all. I ordered roast chicken, Ken ordered lambchops and Anna had the good old standby—a hamburger.  While we waited for our dinner we watched an art class taking place in the park across the street and the most adorable dog, very french looking, a cross between a dacschund and a terrier, black white and brown frolicked amidst the serious artists.  The dog went from person to person and we couldn’t tell who was its master. Finally Ken couldn’t stand it any longer, he had to go play with the dog, and he scratched its neck, and roughhoused with it until the dog chased him and barked at him. It was all very entertaining and then our wonderful meal arrived. We had  warm chocolate cake for desert before heading back to the hotel.  Now, after a big dinner, Ken would definitely be sleepy, I thought. We prepared to go to bed, snuggled into bed with a book and at 11 p.m, finally, Ken turned out the lights. He slept 8 hours and woke up today feeling terrific. He’s an advertisement for the virtues of French Maritime Pine Bark extract.