We woke up around 06:00, and slowly got ready, cleaning the house for Crystal’s parents and for the dogsitter from Dogs on The Run.  Ironically, the house was probably the cleanest it’s been in months.  We made a document for the dogsitter with instructions on the dogs, but also how to use the appliances and electronics in the house.  Julian sent us the final paperwork for our revised UAE portion of the trip - this was probably the closest we’ve cut something to our departure.  Crystal drove Justin downtown so that he could pick up the car.  It turns out it was actually a truck.

While he was doing that, Crystal had a Zoom meeting with others planning to get their Hungarian citizenship, and she shared her recent experience at the Hungarian consulate in Los Angeles.  We received a nice note from our neighbors Hal and Jo, wishing us well on our trip.  We left the house just before 10:00.  Suffice to say that a truck doesn’t handle like a German car.  We stopped about halfway to LAX to grab an early lunch at The Hat - a Pastrami Burger for Crystal, and Gravy Fries with Pastrami for Justin.

We spent most of the drive up to LAX considering musical acts whose first single ended up being their most popular when it was all said and done.  Some of the acts we settled on were Guns N Roses, NWA, Pearl Jam (maybe), Britney Spears, Nas, and Lauryn Hill (maybe).  Despite going just a little over 100 miles, when we filled up the truck with gas it was over $42.  In hindsight, Justin should’ve just gotten a smaller vehicle.  

Inside the Tom Bradley Terminal, the Emirates check-in line had about 40 people and about 50 luggage carts.  The family in front of us were a mess.  Mom and Dad weren’t paying attention at all; the teenage son and daughter refused to help move anything; the baby was a baby, but at least quiet; the 5 year old most on top of things.  They constantly had to be prodded to move forward.  Justin kept starting to say something and then immediately biting his tongue.  For all we know, they might still be getting checked in now.

Our tickets didn’t take advantage of the fact that we have TSA pre-check, so we had to remove our computers and liquids - we weren’t used to having to do this any more.  At the gate, we tried to change seats to avoid a window seat.  We had no luck getting aisle seats, even separate from each other.  We figured we’d just warn the person in seat C that we’d be getting up frequently.  To avoid a repeat on the flights home, we pinged Julian to see if we could get aisle seats for return flights.  To pass the time, we had a flight of Sangiovese, Malbec, and Carmenere at Vino Volo.  We tried to get more cash, but the one ATM in the terminal had technical issues.  It’s kind of surprising that such a large terminal has just the one ATM, but we couldn’t find another one even after walking up and back the terminal multiple times.