Day 1: LAX

We woke early on Monday to start packing in the hopes that having the whole process fresh in our minds would keep us from forgetting anything. I was also hoping that by waking early we'd be exhausted for the plane ride - I was still skeptical that I'd sleep even though everyone said that's what would happen. We had plans to leave around 11am because our flight was scheduled for 4:15pm and we knew it would take us about an hour and half to two hours to get to the airport. We also built in plenty of time to get through security as I had no idea what to expect. I'd never flown and we were also traveling internationally.

Paul's parents had volunteered to take us to the airport and they showed up close to 10:30am. I was running around at that point because I'd forgotten to print out our paperwork (not tickets, just planning paperwork) and also get all these last minute things done. His mom started building this list of things that Paul needed and of course he hadn't packed any of them. I really wanted to make sure the house was clean too, and I was worried we'd forget to take out the trash and run the dishes and whatnot and come back to a rancid smelling apartment. That wasn't the welcome home I wanted! My own parents showed close to eleven and together we still got out of the house just fine, and on the road easily. Saying goodbye to my parents was hard. I've never really "traveled" and all I remember is when I was a little girl and went to a Christian camp for a week. I don't remember being home sick while at the camp but I remember running frantically to my brother once they came to pick me up. My mother did surprisingly well in the goodbyes to me - though she broke down a bit when saying goodbye to Paul and telling him to keep me safe. I have to admit that if she didn't show a little bit of concern I'd be concerned :)

Once we were in the car, I felt I could sit back but at the same time I was anxious for the two hour drive to pass. Paul pulled out the video camera we'd borrowed from his parents and started filming, which I hated. I hate myself on camera and I wish I didn't. I wish I could have the entire trip on camera - but my self-consciousness kept me from being myself when the camera was on. Besides, traffic was boring and there wasn't much to talk about on the way there. It was on the way there that I realized I'd forgotten my toothbrush - but I knew I could just buy one there. We actually had wonderful luck with traffic, and we were there within an hour and a half. We stopped in a loading zone and popped out quickly and grabbed our luggage. There wasn't any long goodbyes here - as traffic was building behind us - and we started into the airport pretty clueless. We knew which terminal we needed to be in, and we saw our airline listed on the signs outside, however that's where our knowledge stopped. I'd never been to this airport before, and it was confusing. Our airline was listed at one end of the terminal but international departures was listed at the other. Plus, there was a second story that was for security checks - so we didn't know where we needed to go.

After a lot of walking around we found that we needed to check in with our airline desk where we'd also check our non-carry on bags, head up to the security checks for ourselves & our carry on bags and then to the other side of the terminal for our departure gate. Everything went pretty smoothly, though it grossed me out that when we did our security check we were forced to take off our shoes and walk around in our socks or barefeet. I could smell the odor on the ground - which completely disgusted me - but I wasn't about to cause a scene so I just did it. Frustratingly, you could tell who had done this before and who hadn't and no one was there to direct you. I just tried to follow what everyone else was doing - and at one point this man grew so impatient that he just cut in front of us and a bunch of others. Whatever, we got there with plenty of time. It was a mad dash to throw everything into these trays that would be scanned as they were pushed down this path of rollers, then a mad dash through the metal detectors, and then again a mad dash to grab your things before they were pushed off the path by all the others being pushed through. It seemed very unstructured, like they needed someone there to meter how many people were being checked at a time.

After everything, we sat down outside our gate with about a half hour to spare before they would begin boarding. We took this chance to munch on some snacks, drink some soda and generally catch our breaths. It was exciting to be sitting there, knowing that soon I'd be on my first plane :) I was a bit nervous, but I just kept remembering that I'd done a lot of other things that were much scarier - like when I went on the roller coaster at Wild Bills in Nevada. This would be tame in comparison.