Our Voyage to Rome - Day 1

Well, we got started early this morning. I woke up at 4 a.m. and got ready. I waited until almost 5 to wake Ainsley since she just needed to change clothes to be ready to go. Malcom and Linda picked us up and took us to the airport. Our flight left at 7:10 a.m., so we wanted to get to the airport before 6. I had a large suitcase, my carry on bag, my purse, a stroller, and Ainsley, who also had a carry on bag. Little did I know...you can't do curbside check in on international flights. Great.

A kind porter took pity on us and helped us get our bags into the terminal so we could check in and get our one bag checked. The woman at the check-in desk apparently got up on the wrong side of the bed, because she was a total hag. Apparently I didn't do anything right, so I was corrected on several occassions. Normally, I would have made a rude comment to her, but I let it go. That's my charity for this trip, becuase she really kinda hacked me off. We got checked in and turned our bag over to security. Now I just had to get everything left to the gate.

Ainsley helped me by holding her stuff and rode in the stroller. Thank God for roller bags that roll whichever way you push them. I would have gone nuts otherwise. TSA opened my carry on and took my moisturizer. I forgot about the 3-ounce rule for carryons when I put my dop kit in my carry on bag. It was originally supposed to go in the checked bag, but there just wasn't room. So, TSA confiscated it since it was too big. Good thing I don't buy expensive lotion or I would have been really mad. We got to the gate and boarded almost immediately. After we got up in the air they served breakfast. The flight attendant asked if Ainsley would be sharing mine, and when I told her "No" she looked a little irritated. However, Ainsley got her own breakfast and promptly squashed a blueberry under her knee. Ah, well. If that's the worst casualty of this trip I'll definitely take it. She asked me if she should change clothes now, and I told her "No, it'll dry."

Our captain is anticipating getting us to Chicago almost 20 minutes early, which is great. It'll give us more time to maneuver around the airport before we get on our next plane to Toronto. This is going to be a really long day, but so far everything has gone really well.