Reflections of our trip to Europe part 1

The town car picked us on right on time. Here we are, fresh as daisies...ready for our European adventure. (Little did I know that by the time this picture was being taken 4 of my 6 cats had escaped out of the living room window and were on an adventure of their own...)

We got to LAX in record time. The freeways were clear and we just breezed right on in. The town car dropped us off at the American Airlines door and we went inside to get our boarding passes.

After I almost destroyed my passport by feeding it through the machine the wrong way...we had our boarding passes and then we stood in the wrong line to check our bags. We had first class tickets and little did I know that we had our own special area with no line where we could check our luggage with little to no hassle. This would be the first in a long list of lines we stood in that we didn't need to because I didn't know better.

While on the way to our special check in area Tori managed to step in gum.

We hoped this wasn't going to set the precedent for the rest of the trip.

First class passengers have their own security check point, too. There are much smaller crowds so the process goes much faster...unless you are traveling with a rookie. It took Tori 3 tries to get through the security screening.

Here she is trying to look innocent:

After we completed the check in process we went to the "Admiral's Lounge" and celebrated our pending trip with shots of Crown Royal and Kettle Vodka, respectively. Tori didn't admit that she was a nervous flyer but when she ordered the Crown Royal before the traditional 5:00 drinking hour I knew she needed a little assistance in bucking up and getting on the plane.

We drank our drinks, ate some snacks, checked our email and before we knew it we needed to head out to the gate and board our plane.

As we walked down the hallway and approached the plane we said, "Good bye America"...and then laughed at our stupid selves (self's?) because it was then that we remembered that we were only going to Chicago on this leg of the trip~

Part 2 to follow....