QotD: My First Flight

Do you remember your first flight? Where did you go? Why?
Submitted by Laurel.

When I was around 11 I flew with my parents from either LGA or JFK (can't remember which) to LAX in order to go to my oldest brother's college graduation at Caltech.  The airline was TWA and it was a widebody, either a 747 or L-1011 (I know we took one of each on the flight out and back).  I remember being extremely excited to go on an airplane.  We got menus to pick our meal (in coach!) and of course the free drinks were exciting.  The landing wasn't so great for me because I wasn't sure about what I was supposed to do with my ears (I think I didn't pop them by swallowing because I thought it would hurt) and my parents weren't much help with that either, so I ended up not being able to hear very well for about 12 hours afterwards.  The same thing happened on the way back and I assumed it was typical that you lost your hearing for a while after a plane flight.  It wasn't until I started flying regularly in college that I figured out that you could just pop your ears and it was all fine, didn't hurt and didn't cause hearing loss.