The Macies' Story: Leaving on a Jet Plane...

After over 8 months of planning, the day had finally arrived. It was October and it was time for us to leave the U.S. and fly to Rome! The night before we were set to fly out from Reno, Mom and Pop took us to Reno. We had a nice diner at Outback steakhouse and then they took us to our hotel.

We had an early shuttle to catch from the hotel to the airport. It was going to be a long day of flying. We were flying from Reno to Dallas, Dallas to Chicago and finally Chicago to Rome, Italy.

Our first few flights were on smaller planes. We were already tired from not sleeping the night before and being awake nice and early to catch our first flight.

I enjoyed my window seat while I could. I only had it for the short flights. The long one would be spent in the middle of the plane.

Here's a shot of our plane for the long ride out the window at our terminal.

A shot of me waiting to board the plane. By the way, I am super nervous here. I was a nervous wreck the whole week leading up to this trip. I was so afraid of getting on the plane and flying over all that ocean, all that land and then arriving in a foreign country. I was worried about crashing, bombings, terrorist attacks, getting mugged, getting lost, etc., you name it, I was afraid of it.

Dwayne on the other hand was super calm. He kept me reasonable and rational. He didn't let my fears stand in the way of one of life's greatest adventures.

Finally we had found our seats, were loaded up, buckled in and set for our trip overseas. I knew it was going to be a long flight. Our goal was to get as much sleep as possible before we landed since we were leaving Chicago in the evening and arriving in Rome in the morning the next day.

The map showed us where we were and what part of the world was night what part was daytime. It was a strange feeling to watch the plane on the map slowly move across the world leaving behind the only country I had ever been in. It was strange to know that as we flew over the ocean, and as the plane moved across the map, our families and friends were asleep back at home.

As we got closer to our destination, the map became more detailed. We could see the different cities and towns around Rome. I was starting to feel excited as I viewed our plane getting closer and closer to Rome. We were almost there and that meant we would be landing and I could stand up soon!

The screens would also show us the temperature, the speed of the plane, what our temperature was, how long until we arrived in Rome, what the local time in Rome was and what our altitude was.

Somewhere over the ocean (or over the land) it became the next day, which was October 6, Dwayne's birthday! So, when they served breakfast the next day, we toasted to Dwayne's 29th birthday, our 5 year wedding anniversary and a wonderful long vacation together over two cups of hot coffee. We were super tired as I am sure you can see in our picture!

We had arrived in Italy! Our first adventure was finding our way through the airport to customs for a stamp on our passport. A stamp on my passport! I couldn't believe it, I had a passport and was going to get a stamp on it too! I was so giddy! We were so thankful for pictures! We just followed the pictures to find our way around when we couldn't read what the signs said.