Day 1

Day 1 
STL-RDU-JFK-ZRH
The next time I think about booking a flight a 7 am flight someone needs to stop me! I drug myself out of bed, got ready & made it to the airport just in time to catch my flight to Raleigh/Durham. I had a 2 hour layover there & let me tell you there is nothing to do at RDU!! Of course I turned to Twitter to pass the time & that's where I "met" another trip participant Danielle. She had taken the red eye from the west coast so she had lots of time to pass at JFK & was tweeting as well. We exchanged some tweets, I ate some lunch & then boarded my flight to JFK to meet up with everyone else. 
Once I arrived at the Swiss Intl gate I met Rick & Ellen, husband & wife from North Pole, Alaska. We were the first ones there so we got in line to check in. Of course I was booked in a middle seat so I quickly asked to be moved to an aisle which the guy didn't do but I didn't notice until after I walked away. Thanks Swiss Intl Air guy. 
I grabbed a snack & went to our gate where I met Patty. I think she might live in the Atlanta area but I could be confusing that with someone else. I'm lucky I remember everyone's name! Soon after everyone started rolling in. There is Gene & Linda from Atlanta, their youngest daughter Meredith who lives in DC, Nora from Chicago, Amber from Mobile (whom I "met" on FB prior to the trip), Jessica & Marshall a couple from NYC, Karen & Janae a mother daughter from Texas, Laurie, Gil & Danielle who all live in the Bay area but didn't know each other prior, Sasha from New Jersey, me and the trip leader Katie! It's a pretty awesome group of people. 
For this trip we stopped over in Zurich Switzerland so we took Swiss International. It was nice but not as nice as some other international airlines I've flown & definitely not as nice as Emirates from last time! Our flight left at 6 pm so I was pretty tired by the time we finally took off. Luckily there was an empty aisle seat that I could move to so imwas much more comfortable! I ended up sitting next to Sasha so we talked for awhile & it turns out she works for Kenneth Cole & knows my current rep Tony & my old rep Will. Too funny! Again the shoe industry is a small small world! After a bit of chatting I ate dinner & started to watch The Help but fell asleep halfway through. After a very long nap I woke up & restarted the movie. I made it through & then fell asleep again & missed breakfast! Thankfully the 7 hour flight went by pretty fast & I got caught up on my sleep. Or so I thought...