Jenine's Notes: Well, the adventure has begun! Of course no trip would be without a bit of airport drama. This time it wasn't my supposedly oversized carry-on bag, but Ken's name. While we know him as Ken, shockingly his real name is Kenneth. I stupidly booked the flight under Ken, which of course doesn't match his passport name of Kenneth and that enabled us to experience United's excellent customer service. Um, ok...we got the agent from hell and she turned a 2 minute exercise into 15 minutes of aggravation. We finally made it to security, which seemed to be glacially slow...but we did choose the fast line this time (that never happens).

The flight from IAH-IAD was uneventful (never a bad thing) and we enjoyed BusinessFirst, with big seats, 200 movies and TV shows and salad/soup. A nice prelude to the next flight!

We only had 40 minutes of downtime in IAD, but got to enjoy that time in the Global First Class Lounge next to the gate. Sushi, champagne, open bar and lots of fabulous looking food was available. We settled for tea and chocolate as we were preparing for an abundance of food and alcohol on the flight.

I have just settled into my cubicle on the plane (not sure how else to describe it) in 1A and Ken is across the cabin on the other window in 1K. There are only 6 seats in global first, one on each window and one in the middle didn't want to swap to the aisle, so Ken and I are waving at each other across the cabin. The cubi's are big enough I can go over, enjoy a glass of wine and watch a movie with him if I want! The cubi has a seat that lies flat, flat screen TV, duvet, comfy pillow and lots of buttons/gadgets (it will take me the full 7.5 hours to figure them out). We have received our menus's and ordered short ribs (me) and salmon (ken) for dinner. Now, we are going to "sit, back, relax and enjoy the flight" (you can't tell that I have heard that phrase a lot??).