On my recent summer vacation to Europe, I learned the real meaning of the words, jet lag. When you arrive in Europe after an overnight flight, you try to stay awake for the rest of the day to avoid getting it.

Of course, no one ever tells you that your relatives will probably forget that when you finally arrive, and you've only had three or four hours of sleep.

Touring and tired

After a three-hour delay in Chicago and another hour wait for our luggage, my cousin and I arrived in Amsterdam.

We dropped our bags off at my aunt and uncle's house and then set out for a four-hour walking tour of the nearby city of Utrecht in the Netherlands.

Four hours is a long time to walk, but then we also decided to take a tour of the famous Dom tower in downtown Utrecht.

It was a nice tour in English and was a really cool place. It had about 400 stairs to climb—all we wanted to do was go to bed—so it felt more like 4,000.

Enjoying Europe

Cass and her cousin at the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

I had a fantastic time in Europe and got to see beautiful things that you usually only read about in books.

As an art history major, I was thrilled to see original works by DaVinci, Michelangelo, and Rodin.

We went to the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Van Gogh Museum, the Sagrada Familia, and the Mediterranean coast.

Jet lag caught up with me everywhere I went. It wasn't really the expected physical feeling of fatigue, but more like feelings of frustration and hopelessness. Example: while climbing the Dom tower, I had the feeling that I would rather be asleep.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have skipped any part of my trip for anything. But as any traveler knows, there are times when the stresses and confusions of traveling in a foreign country make you wish you were at home in the US where you know what to expect.

Let me give you another example...

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