It's 2:24pm. I am at StarAlliance Biz Lounge in LAX. Thanks to Jon, he and I were able to join Scott in the lounge. It's comfy with a lot of food! How one can fly coach class? Money talks! I must, must make money somehow for the future! Anyhow, this morning was really frantic or frenetic as Americans would say. I woke up at 6am; I had gone to bed at 2am but couldn't sleep. My feet and nose were cold as usual and my mind was busy with things that I must do or not forget before the departure. I forced myself to sleep... Scott didn't want to pack or was rather too exhausted to do so. So, I had sent him to bed around 11pm and promised to wake him up as I would. Scott finally woke up around 7:30am, grunting; he is not a morning person at all and neither am I. I was up only because I was all excited^^ I made coffee, finished my packing, and kept checking my final to-do list before the departure. Initially I had planned to go hiking this morning, but just didn't have enough time. Instead I had to help Scott packing. He had a 2-page packing list; he looked for things on the first page and I put together stuff on the second page so that he could pack them all together... Lots of things missing: we couldn't find gators, polyprofelene tops, hiking socks, baby power, vaseline, etc. It was crazy! In the meantime, Scott sprayed pesticide around the house to prevent a major bug invasion during our absence-bugs seem to know when's the best time to visit en masse-and later, set the timers for lights and radio-yes, we do our best to stop potential burglars-while I pour bleach into our toilets! Finally, we finished packing and Scott turned off water-not gas because the valve was stuck, but the house won't blow up, I believe^^-and I disposed house trash one last time. We met Narayan at 11am-10 minutes later than the original schedule-in front of his house. We put our gear into his Saturn and he drove us to the Flyaway Bus Terminal at 11:07am. We had a nice conversation-with a startling piece of information about him by the way, which I can't divulge here because of a certain privacy issue-and he got us to the terminal by 11:26am so that we were able to make 11:30am bus! No traffic, breezing down on ever-crowded 405 to LAX, it took only 35 minutes. At 12:07pm, Scott and I were walking inside the Tom Bradley Terminal toward the Lufthansa check-in counter. Scott checked in right away and I waited for Jon another 10 minutes and then, we checked in together. We didn't get exit row seats as we had hoped, but 45H and 45K in a Airbus400 shouldn't be too bad. We'll see... TSA process was not too bad. 'Took off my shoes and showed my quart size bag full of liquid in all less-than-3oz. plastic bottles separated from my backpacks. No trouble. We got to the StarAlliance Lounge on the 5th floor finally. At first, I thought we wouldn't get in because a receptionist made a fuss over Jon's new temporary memebership status of Red Carpet Club of UA. I was about to blow up when they suddenly and somehow allowed us to go in! I couldn't understand all that charade! I have a long, long way to go in my English department. Finally, all three of us are reunited here in the lounge, enjoying all kinds of delicacy, sort of. There are Korean instant ramyon noodle soup cups, Japanese style rice porridge, minestrone soup, pan-fried gyoza dumplings, little sushi collections, quiches, sandwiches (turkey is good), pastries, cookies, cheese, olives, all kinds of coffee, tea, water, soft drink, and a serious roster of booze! Oh, well, once again my conclusion is that everybody should be rich! If anyone has ideas about how to get rich-no scam please-contact me. Let's all become rich together. I have about an hour and 10 minutes to enjoy this ravish lounge, sort of. Then, I'll fly LH453 scheduled to depart at 4:30pm. Tomorrow, I'll let you know about my flight; how many crying babies were there, how Jon and I suffered leg cramps, how unfriendly flight attendants were, etc. I am thrilled to find out about German hospitality! Actually, the ticket counter lady at Lufthansa wasn't bad at all. She was all smile and cheery, but she didn't get us the exit row seat, saying that there were only 4 exit row seats in Airbus 400 and that they had been all taken. I am still undecided about German hospitality so far... Ciao!