We got up at 8:30 for showers and breakfast, followed by packing the bags. Since I have two duffle bags, I have to be extra careful with stuff that might take a hit in the baggage handling of the flight industry. We checked out and left a total of five items at the reception. Split up again, Dad to the Grammy museum, and I’m looking for some shopping. Hard to find any malls around our hotel, you know, these large structures with AC and a bunch of stores gathered together.
Found a couple of items, and then we met up for our last meal together, lunch at a Mediterranean restaurant. Tasty food, but too much for us both. Got back to the hotel, where dad changed clothes, and then we said our goodbyes. He left for a bus, and I went over to Live LA to catch a movie before heading to the airport. It was commercials before 15:30 (announced show start), trailers for 18 minutes from 15:30, then commercials for another four minutes, making the movie begin 22 minutes after the announced start. In Sweden, that only happens to like IMAX 3D movies. Hobbes and Shaw is a movie that fits Statham and Johnson perfectly, let’s leave it at that.
Got back to the hotel and switched clothes. Would have loved a shower, but none available. Asked the reception to call me a cab, and they offered a private driver who charged $60 flat. I accepted, and after a few minutes, he showed up.
When we started the drive, he put on a Lyft meter, and I asked about the flat rate. “Americans like meter, it’s more precise,” was the answer. I made sure I could pay by card, and he said, “I happily stop at an ATM”. Not the greatest start to what I thought would have been a smooth ride. He had some funny topics to talk about, as well as not having the best English led the drive to be a bit awkward at times.
I picked up the subject of price and payment when we were getting closer to the airport since the meter passed $70. He could charge a card, but “the machine takes $5 extra”. When we stopped, he pulled up another app, so the price on the Lyft app didn’t matter. I gave him some tips in the app and got into the terminal. I’ve written to the hotel to mark my displeasure about the whole thing, just as feedback.
Check-in went smoothly, no line. Security got my backpack because I had two candles in it. The guy whose bag got checked before me took a while since he had some metal parts that got extra scanned, and in the end, he couldn’t bring them. Apparently not worth the money for extra checked luggage cause he threw them away.
Now I’m sitting in the Star Alliance lounge at Los Angeles airport, waiting to board the LOT flight LO24 to Warsaw. Another trip in business class, we’ll see how this one is compared to Air Canada. I’ll probably use the time to get some sleep; it’s been four long weeks.
