“Airplane travel is nature’s way of making you look like your passport photo” -Al Gore

If you ever want a work day to seemingly last forever, the best way to do this is to plan a extensive vacation because the last workday before you leave will undoubtedly feel this way. I can’t say I was all that productive my mind was whistling with the long to do list I inevitably save for the day before. Either way, I was able to start and finish packing with the help of Lauren who I am now legally able to call my girlfriend.

You’d be surprised how often I get this look.

The first day of these trips aren’t the most exciting because it always involves meticulously planned and oriented flights along with a very specific strategic awake and asleep plan that always sounds good in theory but ultimately fails in practice. We arrived at Eppley with our bags ready to discover that our flight had been delayed by 15 minutes, no big deal as we made up for lost time and landed in Minneapolis right on time. After the first leg of our trip, we walked around the terminal and decided we wanted to start the trip off right by eating the most Italian food we could find…so we wound up at TGI Fridays where we ate burgers and drank beer, all in all a great start. We finally boarded our plane and were off to Paris.

The days get confused at this point as our Paris flight was overnight so I’ll end this post at Paris. This leg was rather exceptional as far as transatlantic flights go simply because the wonderful folks at Delta had us on what seemed like a new Airbus with on demand entertainment along with free booze. Unfortunately with all these distractions, sleep did not come easily and by the time we landed in Paris, I was ready for a caffeine IV. The Paris airport was a maze of corridors, security personnel and wonderfully accented women. We managed to get through passport control, a cute little puppy which was the apparent customs agent and then to the satellite terminal where we waited for our plane which was 45 minutes late. After all of that and severe sleep deprivation, we boarded the plane and still managed to land in Florence almost on time. Florence welcomed us with blue skies, 75 degree weather and a slight breeze in the air…too bad we were all too tired to actually embrace it.