Resfeber: Traveling Fever
At the DIS Opening Ceremony, Professor Lars Rossen, who teaches clinical psychology for DIS, mentioned the swedish term "resfeber". Resfeber is defined as: "The restless race of the traveler's heart before the journey begins, when anxiety and anticipation are tangled together; also known as 'travel fever'." He explained that it is a paradoxical psychological state because it is a fear about traveling that can only be cured by more travel, a condition in which you are both being anxious about and craving travel.
This past Friday, I had an extreme case of resfeber. It manifested itself as a stomach tied up in knots and overthinking little details and repacking my carry-on multiple times.
My original travel plan was to fly from San Fransisco to Los Angeles at 1pm on one airline, and then fly from L.A. to Copenhagen at 6pm on a separate airline. Since I would need to pick up my suite case and check it in again, a 3 and half hour layover would have been just the right amount of time, if all went well. As you may have guessed, all did not go well.
My first flight from San Francisco was delayed 3 hours. As we were lining up to board the plane, we were told the aircraft was ready but the pilots were not there. They were on an incoming flight delayed due to weather. 3 hours! There goes my whole layover! I spent the next few excruciating hours standing in line to talk to costumer service, calling travel agencies, texting my parents in a panic, looking for other flights, and obsessively refreshing my flight tracker, hoping and praying for a delay on my second flight. Every option available to me seemed to lead to a different bad outcome, like a terrible version of a choose your own adventure book.
In the end, I bought another flight leaving the next day and pulled my suite case off the flight ( a headache in and of itself). And so I headed home, my head in my hand and my resfeber exchanged for frustration and sadness.
I flew out the next night from the Oakland airport, which was quieter and emptier than the San Francisco airport the day before. After the stress and resfeber of the day before, I was decidedly calm and relaxed. After two easy flights and a long layover in London, I made it to Copenhagen by 7pm and had settled into my room by 8. I had missed the whole arrival weekend but I had made it. My anxiety and anticipation could now truly come to a rest, and my traveling fever broke.
The real adventures would finally begin.