Emilie and the concept of time (… difference)

Fear not, this isn’t going to be philosophical – simply a compilation of weird things to with time difference, distance and geography that have happened since I’ve been here.

So generally, I understand the concept of time zones. Most people do. On top of that, through my (looong) training as a geographer I know that, when you go East for a while you go forward in time, when you go West you go backwards, and when you go North or South, you stay in the same time zone. I very much understand this. Easy. As a European, moving in all of these directions within the same country usually means the clock doesn’t change, but in places like North America… not so much. So just in case you don’t know and you want a little geography lesson, there are 4 time zones in mainland USA (let’s not start with the further parts like Puerto Rico and Alaska, sorry… Not saying it's not important, just that there is enough between the East and West coast as it is). These are, from East to West: Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific. But even knowing that, there are the few weird things that have still messed with my little geographer’s mind:

· I was in West Texas. If you are familiar with the shape of Texas, I was in “the bit that sticks out on the left” (technical term). If you’re not… look it up. So. I was there, minding my own business, and I was driving to Santa Fe, which is in the neighbouring state of New Mexico to the West. But, as I was in “the bit that sticks out on the left” and I was travelling North to reach this neighbourly state to the West. You still here? So, although I was travelling North (the direction that does not generally cause a change in time) … the clock went back! Isn’t that mad? On top of that, the time on my phone happened to change a few miles before the state line (which is technically when the change happens), when neither my watch nor my brain were ready for it. This also coincided to me stopping in the [insert PC description here] town of Van Horn (good old American name, isn’t it?) to get something to eat. At that point I felt stuck in a no person-land of time, not sure if I was supposed to have a late breakfast or an early lunch. This confused me big time. And more importantly, what time was it for the people around me. I probably should have asked, but instead I just ordered Tacos and iced tea and left as quick as I could for somewhere with proper time.

· Then “what about day light savings and winter vs summer?” I hear you say. Well, I am glad you ask, because here comes my next point of confusion. The USA does apply daylight saving. Yes. Well… most states do. That means that not all states do (yep… you heard me)! So, when I got back to Arizona from Mexico the very weekend of the change to winter time, I looked it up: Arizona (where I was) does not use Daylight saving. So, no change for me at the weekend. I repeat: no change in time. Happy days. This also happened to be the day I was travelling to Flagstaff. So, to me, travelling North + within the same state = no time change. And I was right on that one too (phew). But then when I arrived at the bus at 9am, I heard that it would not leave for another hour “because of the time change”. Digging a little further, the exact reason the Greyhound employee gave me was: the clocks might not have changed in Arizona, but they have in Texas, where this bus is then headed. So, we have to leave an hour later, otherwise we will arrive an hour too early in Texas, “Sorry, we forgot about that”. They forgot!!!!! In 2023, are we really relying on someone to remember (something that happens every year…)?? This country can send people on the moon but not cope with the clocks changing. Unbelievable. Or maybe it's just Greyhound who won’t send people on the moon, which is probably just as well.

· Final observation: after discussing states, time zones and daylight saving, we are now going onto the matter of… overlapping geographical boundaries. Yes! So the Navajo nation is a Native American reservation and it covers an area of 71,000 km2 over Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. I think it’s the largest but don’t quote me on that. From discussions with people here, I understand that they have their own system and their own police… and they also do daylight saving. This means that, for example, if in the summer, you decide to travel North (my favourite direction today) within Arizona to somewhere in Navajoland, the clock will change. Then if you travel south back again, the clock will change… again. In the same state. Yep.

There you go. I bet you’re glad you know that. Ironically, I am writing this on a Westbound bus between Flagstaff (Arizona) and Las Vegas (Nevada). At some point, as we will cross the state line and get into pacific time, the clock will go back. So I’ve been asking my fellow passengers whether the arrival time on my ticket is Mountain or Pacific and how basically many hours are left (as I’ve learned not to trust Greyhound) and the answer is… nobody knows, not even the driver (So just to reiterate, Greyhound to the next state, yes OK, but not the moon. I repeat, NOT THE MOON)! But the comment of the bloke in 6D made me smile: “they should just get rid of time zones altogether!”.

That’s all folks.