Jose wrote:

The hard
part is when transmitting, to know what to say before you key the
mike.

Not always. On my first or second solo XC, one airport along the way was a
class C. I contacted departure outbound, of course, and did what I thought
was my usual call-up. I must have missed something, because he asked me
for my "altitude departing".

I'd never heard that before! I interpreted it to mean the altitude at which
I planned to depart the class C. An interesting conversation followed
laugh.

- Andrew

P.S. It occurs to me that some of my best worst aviation
stories come from my first two solo XC flights. I'm
not exactly sure what this means, given that these are
a number of years back now.